UNIVERSITY  nf  CA.T  TFO!?NTy» 

i  ■  / 


CTbc  3nternat!onaI  tTbcolooical  Xibrar^. 


EDITED   BY 

CHARLES    A.   BRIGGS,  D.D., 

£diuard  Robinson  Professor  of  Biblical  Theology,  Union  Theological 
Seminary,  Neiv   York  ; 

AND 

STEWART  D.  F.  SALMOND,  D.D., 

Pnffestor  of  Systeinatic  Theology  and  Neiit  Testament  ExegiHs, 
Free  Church  College,  Aberdeen. 


III.  APOLOGETICS.    By  Prof.  A.  B.  BRUCE,  D.D. 


International  Theological   Library 


APOLOGETICS 


OR 


CHRISTIANITY  DEFENSIVELY  STATED 


BY 

ALEXANDER   BALMAIN   BRUCE,   D.D. 

PROFESSOR  OF 

APOLOGETICS  AND  NEW  TESTAMENT  EXEGESIS,  FREE  CHURCH  COLLEGE,  GLASGOW 

AUTHOR  OF 

"the  TRAINING   OF  THE  TWELVE,"    "THE   HUMILIATION   OP  CHRIST," 

"the  kingdom  of  god,"  etc. 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

IQ24 


Copyright,  1S92,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


'I 


PKEFxVCE. 


The  conception  of  the  nature  and  function  of  Apologetics 
which  dominates  tliis  work  is  fully  explained  in  the  second 
chapter  of  the  Introduction.     It  will  suffice   here  to  say 
V      that  what  is  now  offered  to  the  public  is  not  ati  abstract 
v^-       treatise  on  Apologetics  in  which  all  the  traditional  common- 
^  ^     places  of  the  subject — Tfie  Theistic  Argument,  Revelation, 
Inspiration,  Miracles,  Prophecy,   The  Canon,  etc. — are  dis- 
cussed, without   reference  to   present   needs  and   trials  of 
•^j      faith.     It   is  an  apologetic  presentation  of  the  Christian 
^     faith  with  reference  to  whatever  in  our  intellectual  environ- 
ment makes  faith  difficult  at  the  present  tima     The  con- 
stituency to  which  it  addresses  itself  consists  neither  of 
dogmatic  believers  for  whose  satisfaction  it  seeks  to  show 
how  triumphantly  their  faith  can  at  all  possible  points  of 
\^    assault  be  defended,  nor  of  dogmatic  unbelievers  whom  it 
t    strives  to  convince  or  confound,  but  of  men  whose  sympa- 
thies are  with  Christianity,  but  whose  faith  is  "  stifled  or 
weakened  by  anti-Christian  prejudices  of  varied  nature  and 
origin."     The  aim  dictates  the  method.     It  leads  to  the 
selection  of  topics  of  pressing  concern,  burning  questions ; 
leaving   on   one    side,  or   throwing   into  the    background, 
subjects  which  formerly  occupied  the  foreground  in  apolo- 


vl  PREFACE. 

getic  treatises.  Such  omissions  may  disappoint  those  whc 
are  familiar  with  the  older  apologetic  literature,  but  it  is 
hoped  that  what  is  here  offered  as  an  aid  to  faith  will  meet 
the  wants  of  those  for  whose  benefit  it  is  designed,  and  io 
80  doing  be  in  sympathy  with  the  aim  of  the  projectors  oi 
the  Intkknational  Theological  Libkary. 

A.  B.  BRUCE. 


CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTION 


CHAPTER  L 


HISTORICAL   SKRTOH. 


I.  The  Apologetic  Elements  in  the  New  Testament, 
II.  The  Attack  of  Celsus  and  the  Reply  of  Origen,    . 

III.  Free  Thought  in  the  Eighteenth  Century, 

IV.  Free  Thought  in  the  Present  Time, 


nuat. 
1 

16 

30 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   FUNCTIONS   AND   METHOD   OF   APOLOOETia 

Apology  and  Apologetic,  ..... 

The  idea  of  Apologetic  variously  conceived,      .  .  . 

Place  of  Apologetic  in  a  theological  curriculum, 

Author's  idea  of  the  function  of  Apologetic,     . 

Method  of  Apologetic — Chalmers,  Baumstark,  Delitzsch,  Ebrard, 

Method  of  this  work,    ...... 


33 
35 
86 
37 
39 
42 


BOOK  I. 

THEORIES   OP   THE    UNIVERSE,    CHRISTIAN    AND   ANTI-CHRISTIAN. 

CHAPTER  I. 

THE   OHKISTXAN   FACTS. 

Christ's  love  to  the  sinful  the  fuuiiamental  fact, 

Christ's  works  of  healing, 

Christ's  idea  of  God  and  of  man, 

Jpsus  an  exceptional  Person,     . 

Jesus  the  Christ, 

Clirist's  doctrine  of  the  kingdom, 

5'lirist's  conflict  with  Pharisaism, 

Christ's  doctrine  of  sin, 


47 

48 
49 
51 
53 
55 
55 
57 


VIU 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  IL 


THB   CHRISTIAN   l-HEORY   OF   THE   UNIVhiiSK. 


Extracted  from  the  Cliristian  facts, 

God  an  Ethical  Personality, 

Man's  importance  as  God's  son, 

The  Christian  view  of  moral  evil. 

Sin  a  reality, 

Does  not  originate  with  God,    . 

Not  a  necessity, 

Bible  account  of  the  Fall, 

Moral  and  physical  evil  how  related, 

God  th(i  Creator  of  the  \vorId,    . 

God  the  Sustainer  of  the  world, 

The  Christian  Hope  for  the  world, 


PAOI 

59 

59 
69 
60 
60 
61 
61 
62 
63 
65 
66 
67 


CHAPTER  111. 


THE   PANTHEISTIC   THEORY. 


Spinoza's  view  of  the  aniverse, 
Hetfel's,  .... 

Criticism  of  Pantheism,  .  . 

Its  fascinations, 

Pantheistic  view  of  Personality  of  God, 
Of  the  creation  of  the  world,     , 
Moral  aspects  of  Pantheism,      .  . 

Religious  aspect,  ... 


71 
77 
79 
79 
80 
84 
87 
89 


CHAPTER  IV. 


THB   MATEBIALISTIC   THEOKT. 


Materialism  and  modem  science,  .  .  . 

The  Dilaterialistic  theory  explained, 

Its  relation  to  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  life,  , 

And  to  that  of  the  origin  of  conscious  life, 

Cautious  type  of  Materialism,  .... 

Materialism  on  its  ethical  side,  .  .  . 

Its  atleiapt  to  lind  an  objective  basis  of  morality,        . 

The  religious  aspect  of  Materialism,       .  .  . 

Criticism  of  Materialism,  .... 

Christian   attitude  towards  the  problems  of    the    oiipin  of 

the  existence  of  the  soul,  .... 
Darwiuisiu  in  morals,  ..... 
Worship  of  the  universe,  .  ,  .  . 

Worship  of  ideals,  ..... 


life  and 


91 

93 
94 

9(3 

98 

99 

10-2 

104 

105 

107 
112 
114 
114 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  y. 

THE   DEI3TI0  THEORY. 

Deism  contraated  with  Pantheism  and  Materialism, 

Four  characteristics  of  Deism, 

Deistic  optimism, 

Deistic  view  of  human  nature. 

View  of  the  future  life, 

Criticism  of  the  theory, 

Deistic  optimism  extravagant, 

Butler's  Analoijy  of  Religion, 

Modern  prssimism  :  Mill  and  Schopenhauer, 

Kant's  view  of  moral  evil, 

Silence  of  the  Old  Testament  on  future  life, 


nei 

IIP 
117 
117 
119 
120 
122 
123 
125 
126 
128 
181 


CHAPTER  VI. 


MODERN   SPEOnLATIYB  THEISM. 


Contrasted  with  Deism, 

Immanence  and  transcendence, 

Immaneiice  as  conceived  by  Theodore  Parker, 

Attitude  of  modern  Theists  towards  prayei 

Views  on  providence  and  human  destiny. 

Criticism  of  the  theory. 

In  a  state  of  unstable  equilibrium, 

Unsatisfactory  in  a  religious  point  of  view, 

Does  not  satisfy  the  craving  for  certainty, 

Buoyant  tone  of  modem  Theists, 


182 
184 
186 

139 
141 
142 
142 
142 
143 
145 


CHAPTER  VIL 


AONOSTICISK. 


Herbert  Spencer's  position,      .            .             .            •            •            .  147 

Hostile  to  Christian  interests,  .  .  .  .  .148 

Agnosticism  may  seem  justified  by  the  contradictions  of  Theista,      .  149 

Theistic  proofs,             .......  149 

The  Cosmological  argument,   .  .  .  .  .  .149 

The  Teleological  argument,     ......  150 

The  Ontological  argument,      ..*•.•  153 

Modern  lines  of  evidence,        .            .            .            •            •            ^  154 

Significance  of  this  conflict  of  opinion,           .            .            .  157 

Not  that  God  is,  but  rohat  God  is,  to  be  insisted  on,  .             .  158 

The  Christian  idea  of  God  a  hypothesis  which  all  we  know  tends  W  verify,  158 

Process  of  verification  sketched,           .....  158 

Man  the  ])asi.s  of  the  Theistic  argument,         ....  161 

Agnostic  religions,       ...             ....  168 


CONTENTS. 

BOOK  n. 

turn  RISTORIOAL  PRBFARATION    rOB  OHRISTIAHITT. 


OHAFTER  L 

THl  BOimOXB. 

FAOa 

rhe  Hebrew  Scripture*,  .  .  .  .  .165 

History  of  Redemption  as  drawn  from  these  before  modern  criticism  arose,  165 
Etifect  of  criticism  OQ  this  view,  .  .  .  .  .166 

167 
169 
170 
171 
173 
174 


Critical  account  of  the  literature, 
"Law  and  Prophets"  becomes  "  Prophets  and  Law,** 
The  Hagiographa,        ..... 
Attitude  of  apologist  towards  criticism,  .  « 

Begiu  our  study  with  the  Prophets,    .  .  » 

Our  plan,        ...... 

CHAPTER  IL 

THE   RBLIOION   OF  THE   PROPHETS. 

The  Prophets  of  eighth  and  seventh  centuries  Monotheists, 

Jehovah  supreme  over  the  nations, 

Creator  and  Snstainer  of  the  world,    . 

Righteous  Governor  over  all  (Amos),  . 

Election  of  Israel  confirms  this  i!ea  of  God, 

The  Holy  One  of  Israel  (Isaiah), 

Inviolability  of  Zion  (Isaiah), 

Denied  by  Jeremiah,   . 

Individualism  and  Univeisalism, 

Whence  came  the  religion  of  the  Prophets  t 

CHAPTER  III. 


THK  PKOPHETIO  IDBA  OV  IBRABI/S  VOCATION   AKD  BISTORT. 

Prophets  viewed  Israel  u  an  elect  people, 

Elect  for  a  purpose,     ....  . 

Israel  the  bearer  to  the  world  of  the  true  religion,     ,  . 

Prophetic  references  to  Israel's  past  history,  .  .  . 

Verify  the  election  of  Israel,  ..... 

Abraham's  call,  ...... 

Geographical  position  of  Israel,  .... 

Principle  of  election  creates  an  apologetic  problem  with  reference  to 
heathen  world,     ...... 

Modern  views  of  ethnic  religions,        .... 

Are  these  views  recouiilablo  with  the  election  of  Israel  f        . 

The  true  idea  of  that  election,  and  inferences  from  it, 

God's  care  was  for  the  interest*  of  the  true  religion,  not  for  a  pet  people, 


176 
178 
178 
180 
182 
183 
184 
186 
187 

19a 


192 

194 
105 
195 
196 
198 
200 

201 

201 
204 
206 
207 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  IT. 


MOBAIBlf. 


Eteh  ttag«  in  Isnel's  religion  connected  with  •  providential  criris, 

The  Decalogue  the  great  Mosaic  monument, 

Proofs  of  Mosaicity  of  Decalogue, 

Original  form  of  Decalogue,     .  . 

Religious  siguificanee  of  Decalogue,    . 

Compared  with  Egyptian  ritual  of  the  dead, 

Mosaism  and  Judaism  contrasted, 

Relation  of  Moses  to  Levitical  ritual, 

The  Jehovah  of  the  Decalogue  and  the  Baal  of  Pagan  Semitic  religions 

contrasted,  .  .  . 

Mosaism  and  the  state  after  death,     . 


208 
209 
209 
215 
21" 
217 
21S 
221 

223 
224 


CHAPTER  Y. 


PBOPHETISM. 

Sketch  of  history  from  Moses  to  800  B.O., 

The  Jehovah  of  Elijah  (image-worship), 

The  Prophets  reaffirmers  of  Mosaism  with  new  emphasis :  resemblanoea 

and  contrasts,  .... 
The  Prophets  mural  critics  of  their  time,  . 
Their  passion  for  righteousness,  .  . 

Their  faith  in  an  objective  moral  order,  • 

Placed  morality  above  ritual,  .  .  a 

Prophetic  moral  ideal  healthy,  .  • 

Trials  of  their  faith,     .... 
Apologetic  value  of  Hebrew  prophecy,  . 

Prophetic  oracles  compared  with  utterances  of  Pagan  sages, 


226 
228 

231 
232 
233 
233 
284 
238 
239 
242 
248 


CHAPTER   VI. 


FROPHETIC   OPTIMISM. 

Combination  of  passion  for  righteousness  with  a  hopeful  spirit  rare, . 

The  source  of  prophetic  optimism,      ..... 

Sprang  out  of  faith  in  election  of  Israel,         .  .  . 

Ultimately  out  of  prophetic  idea  of  God  (grace),  . 

The  expression  of  prophetic  hope,        ..... 

Various  types  of  the  ideal  future  (Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Prophet  of  the  Exile), 

The  value  of  prophetic  optimism, 

The  Ideal  Royal  Man,  .  .  , 

The  kingdom  of  the  good,       .  .  • 

The  suffering  servant  of  God, .  .  . 

These  three  ideals  met  in  Jesni, 


246 
247 
248 
248 
251 
251 
256 
258 
260 
260 
261 


Xll 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  VIL 


From  Prophetism  to  Judaism  a  great  descent, 

t'ould  God  have  any  liand  in  Judaism  ? 

It  liad  a  good,  beneficent  side, 

Literary  activity  of  the  exiles, 

Religious  value  of  the  Levitical  Code, 

Evil  latent  in  Judaism, 

Remained  for  a  time  an  undeveloped  germ. 

The  Psalter  a  proof  of  this, 

How  critical  views  of  the  late  origin  of  the 

ment  verdicts,       .  .  . 

Two  legal  experiments,  .  . 


law  affect  New  Testa 


FAOI 

261 
263 
265 
266 
268 
270 
271 
272 

275 
277 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


THE   NIGHT   OF    LEGALISM. 


This  period  deprived  of  the  light  of  prophecy, 

279 

The  Scribes,     ..... 

281 

their  work,      ..... 

282 

Persian  influence,         .... 

283 

Sectarian  division  (Pharisees  and  Sadducees), 

287 

Greek  influence,  Maccabsean  revolt,    . 

289 

The  Book  of  Daniel,    .... 

291 

Apocalyptic  literature,             .             .             . 

292 

The  Diaspora,             .... 

293 

The  Septtiagint,           .            .            .            .            < 

293 

Philo  and  Hellenism,  .            *            •            . 

294 

CHAPTER  IX. 

THE   OLD   TESTAMENT    LITERATUBB, 

Revelation  and  the  Bible  not  synonyms,        . 
Utility  of  a  Bible,        ..... 
Whence  arising,  ..... 

Perlection  and  infallibility,     .... 
Minimum  requirements  of  the  Bible's  function. 
Religious  value  of  Old  Testament,  how  aUected  by  criticism. 
Canon  of  Old  Testament,         .... 
Reflections  suggested  by  history  of  Canon,      .  . 

That  history  involved  in  deep  obscurity,         .  . 

Historical  details  respecting  Old  Tustament  Canon,   , 
Test  of  canonioity,  .... 


298 
299 
301 
303 
304 
305 
310 
313 
315 
317 
816 


CONTENTS. 


XU) 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE   DRFEitmB   OF  THB  OlD  TESTAMENT   RELIGION   AND   ITS   IinBRATCRB. 


The  Canon  an  open  (juestion  yet  practically  closed. 

Old  Testament  to  be  read  with  discrimination, 

"Rule  of  faith  and  practice,". 

Defects  of  Old  Testament  religion, 

Quemlousness, 

Vindictiveness, 

Defects  of  post-exilio  literature, 

Philo-Levitical  spirit  {Chronicles), 

Exclusiveness  towards  foreigners, 

Ruth  and  Jonah  a  protest  against. 

Self-righteousness, 

TVese  defects,  how  to  b«  riewed, 


PAGI 

821 
323 
324 
326 
327 
829 
881 
831 
832 
833 
834 
886 


BOOK  m. 

THE   CHRISTIAN    ORIQINI. 


CHAPTER  L 


/ISUS. 


Jesns  welcome  for  His  own  sake,        ■  •  • 

Desire  to  know  the  historical  Jeans,   .  i  • 

The  way  of  Jesus  with  inquirers,         .  .  . 

Fear  of  eternal  loss  hinders  thoroughness  in  religion. 
Can  Jesus  really  be  known  f    .  .  .  . 

Presumptive  evidence  that  it  is  possible,        . 
Jesus  introduced  a  new  type  of  goodness,       .  . 

His  goodness  contrasted  with  that  of  the  Scribes,       . 
Present  tendency  to   make  Christianity  independent  of 

various  forms  of^  .  .  •  .  . 

Criticism  of,    .  .  •  •  .  • 

Intuition,  Dogm«,  Ida^         •  •  •  • 


history 


187 

838 
889 
841 

842 
843 
846 
847 

8&1 

861-368 
854 


OHAFTEB  IL 

/KSnS  AM  THB  0Hmi8T. 

Importance  of  the  affirmation,  •  •  • 

Did  Jesus  claim  to  be  the  Christ,        •  .  • 

Outfit  for  the  Christ,  ..... 
Banr's  view  of  the  relation  of  Jesns  to  the  Hessisnic  idea, 
Jesus  not  an  opportunist  Messiah,      •  .  . 

His  Messianic  idea  transformed,  •  •  • 


857 
858 

858 
860 
861 
863 


XIV 


CONTENTS. 


Messianic  conscionsness  inconsistent  with  humility  (MartineaaX 
Criticiam  of  this  position,        ..... 
Two  helpful  lines  of  thought, .  .  .  •  • 

Josna  He  that  should  come,     .  .  •  •  • 


864 

865 
866 
S68 


CHAPTER   III. 

/E8US    AS    FOUNDER   OF    THE    KIKODOM    OF   OOB, 

The  Kingdom  the  burden  of  Christ's  preaching, 

Jesns  had  to  ereate  both  the  Kingdom  and  the  tme  idea  of  it, 

Christ's  idea  of  the  Kingdom,  .  . 

Spirituality  and  universality, . 

A  kingdom  of  grace,    .... 

Means  and  methods  of  fonnding  the  Kingdom, 

The  miraculous  element, 

Relation  of,  to  the  primitive  gospel,  . 

,,  to  Christ's  character  and  vocation, 

Permanent  significance  of,       . 
Choice  of  the  twelve,  its  signifioanoe, . 
Jesus  did  more  by  His  death  than  by  HLs  life, 
Christ's  teaching  conceniing  His  death. 
The  gospel  narratire*  of  the  Fiis.sion, .  . 


870 
870 
870 
871 
878 
874 
874 
376 
876 
878 
879 
880 
881 
88S 


CHAPTER  IT. 

TESVa  BISEK. 

Modem  views  as  to  importance  of  Christ's  resnrrectioit. 
Five  theories  for  explaining  away  the  resurrection, 
The  the/i  theory  (Reimams),  .  .  . 

The  nooon  theory  (Schleiermacher),   .  • 

The  vuion  theory  (Renan,  Strauss),    .  . 

The  telegram  theory  (Keim),  .  .  . 

No  Christophanies  to  account  for  (Martinesn), 
The  physioal  rtmurection  remains,  bat  a  mysterj, 


888 
886 
886 
886 
187 
Ml 
898 

m 


CHAPTEK  T. 


nav»  LORD. 


Jeens  has  for  the  Christian  oonsoioosness  the  religions  valne  of  Cod, 

Sources  of  faith  in  Jesus  as  divinei 

The  holiness  of  Jesus, 

The  death  of  Jesus,     .  . 

The  resurrection, 

Paul  on  the  resurrection, 

Theological  reflection  on  Christ's  Person  in  Apostolic  Church  (Paal^ 

The  virgin  birth,  ....... 


198 
899 
400 
401 
403 
40^ 
406 
407 


CONTENTS. 


rv 


Modern  view*  o%        •...,.  . 

Tlioronghgoing  Natnralism  exclndes  the  rirgin  life  as  well  m  ttie 

virgin  birth,          .             .                          .            •            .  , 

The  miraculous  possibility  of  (LotzeX              •            .            *  i 

Evolution  and  a  sinlesa  man  (Le  Conte),        •           •           •  • 


PAom 

410 
411 


CHAPTER  TL 

VAVL. 

Importance  of,  to  Ohristianity,            •            •            •            •            •        418 

Dr.  Baur  on,    .             .            .            • 

414 

Makes  too  much  of  Paul,         .             ,            , 

41.1 

Yet  Paul's  importance  great,  .            .            , 

416 

His  conversion,             .            .            • 

417 

Not  without  preparation,        •           •            , 

418 

Autobiographical  hints,            ,            • 

413 

Issues  very  radical,     .             .             • 

421 

Elements  of  Ms  Ohristian  oonsciounMS,        . 

422 

Christ  the  centre,        .            .            . 

423 

Faith  in  Christ's  atoning  death,          . 

424 

Possible  source  of,        .             .             i 

424 

Experience  soorce  of  Paul'*  theologj,             i 

426 

Hia  limitations,           .            .            •            < 

427 

Contrasted  with  Jesua,            .            .            , 

,        427 

Disparagement  of  Paul  (Renan),         •            , 

»        429 

CHAPTER  TIL 

FBIIIITIVB  OHBISTIAKITT. 

Divergencies  of  view  in  Apostolic  Church,      •            •            •           •        480 

Theories  as  to  primitive  Christianity,             < 

431 

Theory  of  F.  C.  Baur,             .           .           , 

481 

„         BemhardWoiM,     .            • 

4n 

M        Weixsib^er,.           •           •           . 

4M 

„        Pfleidem,    .           •           •           . 

434 

Critioinn  of  these  theorits,      .           • 

,        437 

Inferences  from,                       .            • 

441 

Applied  to  HpUtU  to  the  H^hrmt,     .           , 

,         448 

To  iiit>  AcU  iff  the  Apottkt^    .           .           , 

,        445 

Pfl«id«ier's  mw  Trntadaa-Kritik, 

.        447 

CHAPTER  Vin. 

rwM  STVOPTIOAL  ooanuL 


The  statemsBti  of  Pkpiaa, 

How  viewed  by  modem  critics, 


448 
44fl 


xvi 


CONTENTS. 


Pfleiderer's  view,         .... 
Baur  and  Pfleiderer  on  the  Synoptical  Gospels, 
The  so-called  "  Hymn  of  Victory,"    . 
Principlea  of  sound  criticism,  .  . 

Lake's  aim  as  gathered  from  his  preface, 
Inferences  favourable  to  historicity  of  Synoptics, 
Yet  the  Evangelists  not  chroniclers,  . 
Did  they  step  out  of  the  actual  into  the  possible  f 
The  story  of  the  sinful  woman  in  Simon's  house, 
The  great  commission  in  Matt,  xzviii.  16-20, 


CHAPTER  IX. 


THE   FOURTH    GOSPEL. 


Tlie  hardest  apologetic  problem,  .  .  . 

The  vital  question  at  issue,     .... 
Attitude  towards  Johannine  authorship,        .  . 

The  Logos  idea,  ..... 

Free  treatment  of  history,       .... 
And  of  Christ's  words,  .... 

How  to  be  accounted  for  if  John  the  author,  .  . 

Attitude  of  apologist  towards  saoh  questions,  • 

"  Full  of  grace  and  truth,"      .... 
Johannine  miracles,     ..... 
Teaching  of  Christ  in,  compared  with  Synoptic»l  account. 
Lauded  at  the  expense  of  the  Synoptists,        .  . 

Logos  theorem  not  the  key  to  the  gospel,       .  • 

Apostolic  authorship  credible,  ,  •  . 


CHAPTER  X. 

Ttn  tlOHT  OF  THB  WORLIX. 


Christ  the  supreme  authority  in  laligion, 
Christ  and  other  masters,        . 

Christ  and  reason,        .  .  • 

Christ  and  the  Churob,  •  • 

Christ  and  the  Scriptures,       .  . 

The  sphere  of  Christ's  authority,  . 

CkiiMaaitf  HkM  abaolote  religioB,  . 


INTRODUCTION. 


CHAPTER  L 

HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 

This  work  may  fitly  begin  with  a  brief  statement  on  some 
outstanding  topics  connected  with  the  history  of  Apologetics, 
by  way  of  a  popular  indication  of  the  general  nature  of  the 
study  with  which  we  are  to  be  occupied. 

Section  I. — The  Apologetic  Mements  in  the  New  Testament. 

These  have  reference  mainly  to  two  topics :  the  Person 
of  the  Messiah,  and  the  Nature  of  the  Messianic  Kingdom. 
As  to  the  former:  Jesus  came  without  pomp,  political 
power,  or  social  prestige — "  meek  and  lowly "  in  state  as 
well  as  "  in  heart " ;  born  in  poverty,  reared  amid  mean 
conditions,  and  appearing  in  manhood  among  men  utterly 
denuded  of  all  that  tends  to  secure  influence  and  win  the 
goodwill  of  those  who  take  their  inspiration  from  the  pride 
of  lifa  This  was  not  the  Christ  such  persons  desired ;  it 
was  not  such  a  Christ,  they  were  persuaded,  their  sacred 
Books  taught  them  to  expect.  The  Christ  of  prophecy,  the 
Christ  of  their  hearts'  choice,  was  a  personage  who  on  His 
advent  should  be  recognisable  as  a  great  One.  Such  being 
the  Christ  of  expectation,  the  actual  Christ,  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  was  of  course  despised  and  rejected  by  His 
countrymen ;  and  on  His  persisting  in  giving  solid  eiridenoe 
of  His  Messianic  claims  in  His  words  and  works,  was  even 

A 


2  APOLOGETICS. 

hated  by  them,  till  at  length  contradiction  took  the  form 
of  crucifixion.  Then  it  came  to  pass  that  the  injustice  of 
one  generation  became  a  justification  for  the  unbelief  of 
the  next.  Because  their  fathers  crucified  Jesus,  the  Jews 
who  were  contemporaries  of  the  apostles,  and  witnessed  the 
founding  of  the  Christian  Church,  found  it  difficult  or 
impossible  to  accept  Him  as  the  Christ.  Christ  crucified 
became  to  the  Jews  a  aKdvSaXov.  How  could  a  crucified 
man  be  the  fulfilment  of  Messianic  prophecies,  the  realisa- 
tion of  Old  Testament  ideals  ?  It  was  a  hard  question 
even  for  believing  Jews.  Many  Hebrew  Christians  found 
in  the  idea  of  a  crucified  Christ  simply  a  stumbling- 
block. 

To  this  fact  tTie  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  seems  to  have 
owed,  at  least  in  part,  its  origin.  That  remarkable  writing 
is  an  elaborate  apology  for  the  Cross  in  a  twofold  aspect ; 
first  and  chiefly,  for  the  cross  which  Jesus  bore,  and  second 
and  subordinately  for  the  cross  that  came  to  Christians  in 
connection  with  their  profession  of  faith  in  the  Crucified 
One.  It  may  be  regarded  as  the  most  important  contribu- 
tion to  the  apologetics  of  Christianity  contained  in  the 
New  Testament  It  is  indeed  the  one  systematic  effort  of 
that  sort  Very  valuable  apologetic  ideas  occur  in  Paul's 
Epistles,  such  as  that  of  the  "  fulness  of  the  time  " ;  but 
they  are  only  occasional  and  undeveloped  thoughts.  In 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  on  the  other  hand,  we  find  a 
sustained  attempt  to  meet  in  a  comprehensive  spirit  the 
difficulties  of  the  Christian  faith  as  these  presented  them- 
selves to  the  minds  of  Hebrews,  by  setting  forth  Christ's 
death,  with  all  its  foregoing  and  accompanying  humiliation, 
as  an  experience  which  overtook  Him  in  the  pursuit  of  a 
high  vocation,  that  of  Captain  of  salvation ;  an  act  of  self- 
sacrifice  in  virtue  of  which  He  realised  the  ideal  of  priest- 
hood whereof  only  the  shadow  was  given  in  Leviticalism, 
and  so  inaugurated  the  eternal  religion,  the  final,  because 
perfect,  form  of  man's  relation  to  God. 

Less  obtrusire,  but  not  less  significant,  are  the  ap(4ogetia 


INTRODUCTION.  8 

elements  to  be  found  in  the  sayings  of  Jesua.  Those, 
however,  relate  not  to  the  humiliation-aspect  of  His  own 
Person  and  eaithly  career,  but  rather  to  the  nature  of  His 
mission.  He  took  no  great  pains  to  remove  stumbHng- 
blocks  to  faith  arising  out  of  the  former.  He  rather 
confessed  than  apologised  for  the  meanness  of  His  state 
and  lot.  He  did  not  explain  why  the  Son  of  man  had  not 
where  to  lay  His  head,  but  simply  stated  the  fact  for  the 
information  of  would-be  disciples.  He  seems  indeed  to 
have  been  desirous  to  increase  rather  than  to  diminish  the 
offence  of  His  lowliness,  and  to  have  used  it  as  a  means 
of  protecting  Himself  from  the  patronising  attachment  of 
those  in  whose  sincerity  and  stedfastness  as  disciples  He 
had  no  confidence.  To  this  cause  in  part  may  be  traced 
His  partiality  for  the  self-designation — the  Son  of  man. 
The  same  abstention  from  apologetic  speech  is  observable 
in  His  manner  of  referring  to  His  death.  When  He 
began  to  speak  to  His  disciples  of  that  tragic  event.  His 
manner  was  that  of  one  making  an  announcement,  not  that 
of  one  offering  an  explanation  or  an  apology. 

Thus  reticent  in  what  related  to  Himself,  Jesus  was 
copious  in  apology  in  reference  to  the  nature  of  His 
mission,  and  of  the  kingdom  whose  advent  He  proclaimed. 
The  kingdom  of  heaven  He  preached  was  very  different 
from  what  men  looked  for.  In  two  respects  especially  it 
differed  from  the  Messianic  kingdom  of  popular  expecta- 
tion :  in  its  spirituality  and  in  its  universality}  The  Jews 
looked  for  a  political  Messiah,  and  the  work  they  expected 
Him  to  do  when  He  came  was,  not  to  create  a  new  thing, 
but  to  restore  an  old  thing — to  give  back  to  Israel  her 
national  independence  and  glory,  and  to  be  a  second  David 
ruling  in  wisdom  and  righteousness  over  a  united,  free, 
strong,  and  prosperous  people.  But  Jesus,  so  far  as  one 
can   judge   from  the   evangelic  records,   never  dreamt  of 

*  Fot  a  diseiunon  of  the  qnestion.  What  was  Chrut's  idea  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  I  vide  Book  III.  chap.  iiL  Here  the  resalta  of  that  diacoBaion  an 
taken  for  granted. 


4  APOLOOETIca 

restoring  the  kingdom.  What  He  had  in  view  was  a  new 
creation,  not  a  restoration ;  a  kingdom  of  heaven,  not  a 
kingdom  of  this  world ;  a  kingdom  aflfecting  primarily  and 
principally  men's  souls  rather  than  their  bodies.  In 
preaching  the  kingdom,  He  addressed  Himself  to  men 
whom  the  world  accounts  miserable,  and  offered  them 
boons  which  the  world  does  not  value.  The  most  obtuse 
hearer  could  not  fail  to  perceive  that  whatever  might  be 
the  precise  import  of  such  discourse,  it  related  to  a  king- 
dom very  diverse  from  that  of  common  expectation ;  and 
while  all  might  admire  the  dignity  and  solemn  grandeur 
of  the  Beatitudes,  not  a  few  probably  went  away  feeling 
that  their  hopes  were  mocked,  and  their  understanding 
perplexed  by  sentences  which  in  effect  pronounced  the 
wretched  blessed. 

If  the  spirituality  of  the  kingdom  proclaimed  by  Jesus 
was  a  disappointment  to  Jewish  expectation,  its  other 
attribute  of  universality  was  in  a  still  greater  degree  an 
offence  to  Jewish  prejudice.  The  spirit  of  exclusiveness 
was  a  prominent  feature  in  the  religious  character  of  the 
Jews.  It  had  its  root  partly  in  pride,  partly  in  a  mis- 
taken sense  of  duty.  The  people  of  Israel  had  been  chosen 
of  God  to  be  the  medium  through  which  the  whole  world 
should  eventually  be  blessed.  This  was  God's  great  pur- 
pose in  Israel's  election ;  but  the  method  involved  temporary 
isolation  in  order  to  ultimate  union  in  one  divine  common- 
wealth. That  isolation  had  one  unhappy  result.  It  led 
the  chosen  race  to  mistake  the  means  for  the  end,  and  to 
regard  the  outside  world  with  abhorrence  and  contempt. 
Israel  fell  into  the  fatal  mistake  of  imagining  that  election 
meant  a  monopoly  of  divine  favour,  and  imposed  the  duty 
of  hating  all  outside  the  pale.  This  imaginary  duty  she 
performed  with  great  cordiality.  The  orthodox  religious 
Jews  of  Christ's  time  abhorred  all  dogs  without  the  gates 
of  the  holy  city ;  pagans,  semi-pagan  Samaritans,  publicans 
who,  though  Jews  by  birth,  were  the  representatives  of 
foreign  dominion,  and  even  the  people  of  their  own  race 


INTRODUCTION.  6 

who  were  ignorant  and  negligent  of  the  commandments  of 
the  scribes — the  "  sinners,"  or  "  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of 
Israel" 

To  a  people  thus  minded  a  universal  religion  common  to 
Jew  and  Gentile  could  not  be  welcome.  Yet  such  was  the 
religion  of  Jesus.  In  proof  it  is  sufficient  to  point  to  such 
sayings  as :  "  Ye  are  the  salt  of  the  earth,"  "  Ye  are  the 
light  of  the  world,"  and  to  the  attitude  assumed  by  Jesus 
towards  the  outcasts  of  Jewish  society,  the  "  publicans  and 
sinners,"  who  to  orthodox  Jews  were  as  pagans,  as  is 
implied  in  the  proverbial  expression :  "  Let  him  be  unto 
thee  as  an  heathen  man  and  a  publican."  *  Jesus  loved 
these  outcasts,  and  freely  associated  with  them ;  and  the 
interest  He  took  in  them  was  the  beginning  of  a  social  and 
religious  revolution.  It  was  universalism  in  germ.  The 
man  who  could  be  a  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners,  and 
go  to  be  a  guest  in  their  houses,  could  have  no  objection 
on  principle  to  associate  with  heathens. 

With  instinctive  discernment  of  what  was  involved,  the 
strictly  religious  fellow-countrymen  of  Jesus  earnestly  and 
repeatedly  found  fault  with  this  part  of  His  public  conduct, 
and  so  put  Him  on  His  defence  for  the  crime  of  loving  the 
unloved  and  the  morally  unlovely.  The  words  He  spoke 
in  self-vindication  have  been  preserved,  which  is  not  sur- 
prising, seeing  they  are  full  of  poetry  and  pathos  and 
benignant  sympathy  with  erring  humanity,  and  contain  the 
very  quintessence  of  God's  gospel  to  mankind.  These 
words  constitute  Christ's  apology  for  His  mission  as  a 
Saviour,  and  for  the  kingdom  of  God  as  a  kingdom  of  grace 
free  to  alL  They  are  the  first  apology  made  for  Chris- 
tianity in  its  simplest  aspect  as  the  good  news  of  God  to 
a  sinful  world.  They  are  familiar  to  all  readers  of  the 
Gospels,  but  it  may  not  be  superfluous  to  indicate  here 
the  principles  underlying  them,  stated  in  a  form  adapted  to 
meet  objections,  which,  first  raised  by  the  Pharisees,  have 
found  namerous  sympathisers  in  all  ages,  even  among  men 
1  Matt.  XTiiL  17. 


6  APOLOGETICS. 

of  a   Tery   different    stamp   from    those   narrow   Jewish 

religionists. 

1.  Christianity  aims  at  curing  moral  evil,  and  therefore 
it  addresses  itself  to  those  who  stand  in  greatest  need  of 
its  aid.  "  They  that  be  whole,"  said  Jesus,  "  need  not  a 
physician,  but  they  that  are  sick."  ^  Thereby  He  intimated 
that  He  came  to  be  a  physician,  and  that  like  every 
physician,  He  felt  it  to  be  His  duty  to  devote  His 
attention  to  those  who  most  urgently  required  the 
benefit  of  His  skill.  Were  Christianity  a  mere  philo- 
sophy, it  might  address  itself  exclusively  to  the  cultivated 
class,  and  leave  the  rude  mass  of  mankind  unheeded. 
Were  it  a  system  of  religious  mysteries,  like  the  sacred 
rites  with  which  the  annual  festival  of  Ceres  was  celebrated 
at  Eleusis,  it  might  in  that  case  also  confine  its  interests  to 
the  privileged  few,  and  neglect  the  many  as  unworthy  of 
initiation.  But  professing  to  be  an  effectual  remedy  for 
the  moral  diseases  of  mankind,  it  cannot  consistently  be 
fastidious  and  aristocratic,  but  must  address  itself  to  the 
million,  and  be  ready  to  lay  its  healing  hand  even  on 
such  as  are  afflicted  with  the  most  loathsome  and  deadly 
maladies. 

2.  Christianity  has  faith  in  the  redeemableness  of 
human  beings,  however  sunk  in  sin  and  misery.  Not 
deceiving  itself  as  to  the  grave  nature  of  the  ailments 
with  which  it  finds  men  afflicted,  it  yet  does  not  despair 
of  curing  them.  Philosophy,  coldly  contemplating  man- 
kind from  her  exalted  position,  may  consider  vast  numbers 
of  the  race  incapable  of  moral  improvement,  and  so  regard 
all  philanthropic  efforts  directed  towards  that  end  as  wasted 
labour.  But  Christianity,  cherishing  invincible  faith  in 
the  moral  destiny  of  humanity,  refuses  to  resign  itself  to  a 
policy  of  indifference  based  on  hopelessness,  and  sets  itself 
to  the  Herculean  task  of  healing  men's  spiritual  diseases, 
declining  to  despair  even  in  the  most  desperate  cases.  Sc 
far  from  despairing,  it  even  believes  in  the  possibility  of 

^  Matt.  ix.  12. 


DTTBODUCTION.  7 

the  last  becoming  first,  of  the  greatest  sinner  becoming  the 
greatest  saint  This  truth  Jesus  hinted  at  when  He  said  : 
"  To  whom  little  is  forgiven,  the  same  loveth  little,"  ^ 
suggesting  the  correlative  doctrine,  that  to  whom  much  is 
forgiven,  the  same  loveth  much  ;  in  other  words,  that  from 
among  the  children  of  passion,  prone  to  err,  may  come, 
(  when  their  energies  are  properly  directed,  the  most  devoted 
and  effective  citizens  and  servants  of  the  divine  kingdom.  It 
seems  a  bold  and  hazardous  assertion,  but  it  is  one  never- 
theless which  the  history  of  the  Church  has  fully  justified. 

3.  Christianity  thinks  the  meanest  of  mankind  worth 
saving.  It  rejoices  over  a  solitary  sinner  redeemed,  not  a 
picked  sample,  but  any  one  taken  at  random.  Jesus  said  : 
"  I  say  unto  you.  That  joy  shall  be  in  heaven  over  one 
(such)  sinner  that  repenteth,  more  than  over  ninety  and 
nine  just  persons,  which  need  no  repentance."  *  With  such 
joy  "  in  heaven,"  or  among  Christlike  men,  the  Pharisees 
could  not  sympathise.  It  seemed  to  them  that  people  like 
the  publicans  were  not  worth  saving,  hardly  even  worth 
damning ;  and  in  this  view  many  of  uncelestial,  inhuman 
temper,  in  every  age,  are  only  too  ready  to  agree  with 
them.  But  the  genius  of  Christianity  is  like  the  good 
woman  in  the  parable  who  set  value  on  a  single  small  coin, 
and  could  not  rest  till  she  found  it,  and  expected  all  her 
neighbours  to  rejoice  with  her  when  she  had  succeeded.' 
Jesus  Christ  set  a  high  value  on  every  creature  endowed 
with  a  human  soul,  seeing  in  him  a  lost  coin  bearing 
stamped  on  it,  however  marred,  the  image  of  God,  a  lost 
sheep  capable  of  being  brought  back  to  the  fold,  a  lost 
son  of  God  who  might  any  day  return  to  his  Father's 
house. 

4.  Christianity  assumes  that  God's  attitude  towards 
mankind  is  the  same  as  that  of  Christ.  Jesus  believed  and 
said  that  there  was  joy  in  heaven  over  a  sinner  repenting, 
such  as  He  Himself  felt.  This,  in  truth,  was  His  radical 
defence  to  those  who  found  fault  with  Him.     He  pled  that 

»  Luke  vii  47.  '  T-uke  xv.  7.  •  Luke  xt.  8,  9. 


8  APOLOGETICS. 

in  taking  a  keen  interest  in  the  erring,  He  was  bnt  doing 
as  they  did  in  heaven.  To  His  accusers  i '  was  an  effective 
reply ;  for  while  the  idea  of  God  it  suggested  was  widely 
different  from  that  cherished  by  the  Pharisaic  mind,  yet 
they  could  not  on  reflection  quarrel  with  the  doctrine  that 
God  is  good  and  ready  to  forgive,  and  that  it  cannot  be 
wrong  to  be  like  Him.  Yet  the  alleged  "joy  in  heaven" 
is,  after  «J1,  the  thing  which  men  have  ever  found  it  hardest 
to  believe  in :  some,  because  they  harbour  the  incurable 
suspicion  that  God's  thoughts  towards  men  are  thoughts 
of  evil ;  others,  because  they  cannot  conceive  of  God 
having  thoughts  of  any  kind,  loving  or  the  reverse ; 
Christ's  whole  way  of  representing  God,  as  a  Father  who 
careth  for  His  wayward  children,  appearing  to  them,  how- 
ever beautiful  as  poetry,  anthropopathic,  and  from  a  philo- 
sophic point  of  view  incredible.  The  Absolute,  they  tell 
us,  can  have  no  thoughts,  no  purposes,  no  joys,  no  sorrows. 
A  sinner  repenting  may  be  an  interesting  scene  to  men  of 
philanthropic  spirit  on  earth,  but  it  is  not  visible  from 
heaven.  The  difference  between  a  sinner  penitent  and  a 
sinner  impenitent,  great  as  it  appears  to  us,  is  inappreciable 
at  that  distance.  If  this  be  true,  then  apologies  for  Christi- 
anity are  idle,  for  in  that  case  Christianity  is  only  a  lovely 
dream.  Christ  is  not  the  revealer  of  God,  His  love  to  man 
is  an  amiable  weakness.  His  ministry  of  mercy  a  fruitless 
endeavour ;  for  why  strive  to  bring  men  to  repentance,  if 
repentance  have  no  significance  Godwards,  and  sin  be 
nothing  real  ?  We  shall  have  to  grapple  with  this  dreary 
theory  hereafter.  Meanwhile  let  us  trust  the  word  of 
Christ,  and  venture  to  believe  that  He  uttered  truth  as 
well  as  poetry  when  He  declared  "  there  is  joy  in  heaven 
over  one  sinner  repenting,"  and  go  forward  in  our  apologetic 
course  with  such  ideas  of  God  and  man  in  our  minds  as 
those  which  underlie  the  apologies  He  made  in  His  own 
behalf  as  the  sinner's  Friend. 


dTBODUCTION.  • 

Section  II. — T?ie  Attack  of  Celsus  and  the  Reply  of  Origen. 

LiTERATUBE.  —  Origen,  Contra  Celsum  ;  Pressens^,  The 
Martyrs  and  Apologists,  1871 ;  Theodor  Keim,  Celms' 
Wahres  Wort,  1873 ;  Patrick,  The  Apology  of  Origen,  1892. 

Apology  occupied  a  very  prominent  place  in  the  history 
of  the  early  Church.  In  the  first  three  centuries  of  our 
era  Christianity  had  to  defend  herself  before  the  civil 
magistrate,  pleading  that  she  was  not  dangerous  to  the 
State  and  might  safely  be  tolerated ;  against  popular  pre- 
judice, pleading  that  she  was  not  an  immoral  or  inhuman 
religion  ;  against  the  attacks  of  pagan  philosophy,  pleading 
that  she  was  not  irrational.  Among  her  most  formidable 
foes  of  the  philosophic  class  was  Celsus,  believed  to  have 
been  a  contemporary  and  friend  of  Lucian,  who  has  been 
aptly  named  the  Voltaire  of  the  second  century.  In  the 
latter  half  of  that  century  Celsus  wrote  a  work  against 
Christianity,  entitled,  *AXri0T)<;  X0709,  to  which  Origen,  by 
request,  wrote  a  reply  about  the  middle  of  the  century 
following.*  In  his  philosophy,  Celsus  seems  to  have  been 
an  eclectic  Origen  states  that  in  his  other  works  he 
shows  himself  an  Epicurean,  but  that  in  his  polemic 
against  Christianity  he  concealed  his  connection  with  the 
school  of  Epicurus,  lest  the  avowal  of  it  should  weaken  the 
force  of  his  argument  against  those  who  believed  in  a 
providence,  and  set  God  over  all.  From  the  extracts  out 
of  the  True  Word,  preserved  in  Origen's  reply,  it  appears 
that  Celsus  was  familiar  with,  and  an  admirer  of,  the 
writings  of  Plato,  and  there  is  also  evidence  that  in  some 
of  his  opinions  he  was  in  affinity  with  the  Stoics.* 

-  Eelm,  in  the  anb-title  of  his  above-named  work,  describes  the  Trtte 
Word  as  the  oldest  controversial  writing  against  Christianity  from  the  view- 
point of  the  ancient  theory  of  the  universe  {Antiker  Weltanschauung).  He 
dates  it  178  a.d. 

*  Patrick  {The  Apology  of  Origen)  is  of  opinion  that  the  Celsns  of  the 
True  Word  was  not  Celsus  the  friend  of  Lncian  ;  that  he  was  not  an 
Epicurean,  like  the  latter,  but  a  Platonist,  and  that  the  value  of  his  work 
just  lies  in  its  being  a  work  by  »  Platonist ;  vide  pp.  9-16. 


10  ▲POLOGEnC& 

While  the  attacks  of  other   ancient  nntelievere  majr 

without  much  loss  be  forgotten,  it  is  important  that  the 
student  of  Christian  apologetics  should  know  something  oi 
the  assault  made  by  Celsus,  and  of  the  manner  in  which  it 
was  met  by  Origen.  The  opponents  were  well  matched  ; 
the  attack  of  the  pagan  philosopher  was  deadly,  and  the 
defence  of  the  Church  Father  wise  ;  and  there  is  much  to 
be  learned  from  both. 

The  objections  of  Celsus  to  Christianity  may  be  classed 
under  two  heads :  (1)  his  philosophic  prejudices  ;  (2)  bis 
main  argument. 

1.  To  the  head  of  prejudices  belongs  the  decided  distaste 
manifested  by  Celsus  as  a  man  of  letters  for  the  rude 
simplicity  of  style  characteristic  of  the  sacred  writers 
generally,  and  of  the  teaching  of  Christ  and  His  apostles  in 
particular.  This  distaste  finds  frequent  expression  in  the 
"  True  Discourse."  Tlius,  e.g.,  in  a  passage  in  which  the 
author  seeks  to  show  the  affinity  between  the  good  moral 
elements  of  the  Christian  system  and  the  views  of  Greek 
philosophers,  he  asserts  that  what  is  good  and  true  in 
Christianity  has  been  said  before,  and  better,  by  Plato  or 
some  other  Greek  writer.  In  another  place,  where  he  has 
occasion  to  refer  to  Christ's  doctrine  of  passive  submission 
to  injury,  he  describes  Christ's  way  of  putting  the  matter : 
"  Eesist  not  evil ;  but  whosoever  shall  smite  thee  on  thy 
riglit  cheek,  turn  to  him  the  other  also,"  as  rustic  compared 
with  the  elegant  manner  in  which  the  same  moral  truth  is 
put  by  Plato  when  he  makes  Socrates  say  to  Crito :  "  We 
must  on  no  account  do  injury  ;  we  must  not  even,  as  the 
multitude  think,  take  revenge  for  evil  done."  Origen's  way 
of  dealing  with  this  petty  literary  prejudice  is  characterised 
by  dignity,  magnanimity,  and  wisdom.  He  is  not  careful  to 
defend  Christianity  against  the  charge  of  msticity,  nor  does 
he  make  any  attempt  to  disparage  Greek  eloquence.  He 
simply  puts  in  a  plea  of  utility.  The  simplicity  of  the 
gospel  suits  its  professed  character  as  a  message  of  mercy 
from  God  to  the  raillions  of  mankind.     The  beautiful  ornate 


mTRODucnoH.  11 

style  of  Plato  has  profited  only  a  few,  while  hooks  written 
in  less  pretentious  style  profit  many.  "  This  I  say," 
remarks  Origen,  in  a  truly  philosophic  spirit,  "  not  blaming 
Plato,  for  the  wide  world  of  men  has  usefully  produced  him 
al80."» 

Celsus  was  further  prejudiced  against  Christianity  be- 
cause of  the  prominence  it  gave  to  faith.  He  represents 
Christian  teachers  as  unwilling  either  to  give  or  to  ask  a 
reason  of  their  belief,  and  saying:  "  Inquire  not,  but  believe, 
and  thy  faith  will  save  thee ;  wisdom  is  bad,  foolishness  is 
good."  Origen  replies  that  Celsus  caricatures  the  Chris- 
tian position ;  that  Christians  do  not  neglect  inquiry  or 
despise  true  wisdom ;  and  that  in  attaching  importance  to 
faith  in  religion,  they  but  give  due  prominence  to  a  prin- 
ciple which  enters  into  all  human  affairs,  even  into  the 
business  of  choosing  a  master  in  philosophy.  It  would  be 
well  if  all  could  study  philosophy;  some  Christians  do,  but 
many  have  neither  the  talent  nor  the  leisure.  Surely  it  is 
good  that  such  without  philosophy  and  by  faith  are  turned 
from  sin  unto  righteousness.  Many  have  been  so  turned 
by  faith  in  the  gospel;  and  this  proves  it  divine,  for 
"  nothing  useful  among  men  comes  into  existence  without 
the  providence  of  God." ' 

More  violent  than  either  of  the  foregoing  was  the  pre- 
judice created  in  the  mind  of  Celsus  by  the  intense  interest 
taken  by  Christians,  following  the  example  of  Christ,  in  the 
sinful  and  the  miserable.  He  represents  the  preacher  of 
the  gospel  as  saying  in  effect :  **  Let  no  one  who  is  educated, 
wise,  or  prudent  approach;  but  if  any  one  is  illiterate, 
foolish,  or  untaught,  a  babe  in  knowledge,  he  may  come  to 
us ; "  and  as  aiming  at  making  converts  only  of  the  silly 
and  senseless,  of  slaves,  women  and  children.  Whence,  he 
asks,  this  preference  for  the  sinful  ?  contrasting  with  the 
Btrange  practice  of  Christians  the  more  rational  way  of 
pagans,  in  inviting  to  initiation  into  their  mysteries  men  of 

^  'O  ykf  ictXis  rSt  iiSpu'rtn  xiffft.tt  Xfi''f'*f  "^  favm  itvyntt,  lib.  tL  Q.  S> 
'  OuSir  yif  ^fttCTOf  i*  Mfittti  iftii  yiyurtt,  Kb.  i.  C.  9. 


12  APOLOGETICS. 

pure  exemplary  lives.  This  is  the  old  Pharisaic  complaint : 
"  this  man  receiveth  sinners,"  uttered  in  perfect  good  faith 
by  one  who  thought  he  did  well  to  be  angry  with  Christians 
for  their  perverse  sympathy  with  the  ignorant  and  erring. 
So  new  and  unfamiliar  a  thing  was  the  philanthropy  of 
Jesus  and  His  disciples.  What  helped  to  increase  the 
perplexity  of  Celsus  was  his  unbelief  in  conversion.  He 
held  that  men  who  were  sinners  by  nature  and  habit  could 
not  be  changed  either  by  compassion  or  by  severity :  for 
"  to  change  nature  thoroughly  is  very  difl&cult."  *  Origen's 
reply  was  very  simple.  In  the  name  of  Christianity  he 
pled  guilty  to  the  charge  of  loving  the  sinful  and  the  foolish, 
but  he  denied  that  the  Church  cared  only  for  them  in  the 
sense  meant  by  the  objector. 

These  prejudices  are  comparatively  superficial,  but  the 
main  argument  of  Celsus  struck  at  the  heart  of  the  Christian 
faith,  its  conception  of  God,  in  the  person  of  Christ,  enter- 
ing into  the  world  as  a  redeeming  power.  He  assailed  the 
incarnation  on  three  grounds,  maintaining,  first,  that  it 
degrades  God  by  subjecting  Him  to  change ;  second,  that  it 
unduly  exalts  man,  by  making  him  the  object  of  God's 
special  care ;  third,  that  it  has  in  view  an  unattainable  end, 
the  redemption  of  man,  the  cure  of  moral  eviL 

"God,"  said  Celsus,  enforcing  the  first  of  these  three 
positions,  "  is  good,  honourable,  happy,  the  fairest  and 
the  best;  but  if  He  descends  to  men  He  becomes  sub- 
ject to  change — from  good  to  bad,  from  the  honourable  to 
the  base,  from  happiness  to  misery,  from  the  best  to  the 
most  wicked.  Let  no  such  change  be  ascribed  to  God,"' 
Origen  replied  that  the  descent  of  God  into  humanity 
implied  no  such  change  as  Celsus  imagined ;  not  from  good 
to  bad,  for  He  did  no  sin ;  nor  from  honour  to  disgmce, 
for  He  knew  no  sin ;  nor  from  happiness  to  misery,  for 
He  humbled  Himself,  remaining  none  the  less  blessed. 
What  is  there  bad  in  kindness  and  philanthropy  f     Who 

•  Lib.  iT.  14. 


IMTBODUCnOH.  13 

would  Buy  that  a  physician  seeing  horrible  things  and 
touching  loathsome  things,  that  he  may  heal  the  sick,  passes 
from  goodness  to  badness,  from  honour  to  disgrace,  from 
happiness  to  misery  ?  * 

More  distasteful  even  than  the  theological  was  the 
anthropological  postulate  of  the  incarnation  to  the  mind  of 
Celsus.  The  central  truth  of  Christianity  seemed  to  him 
to  attach  far  too  much  importance  to  man.  What  was  man 
Uiat  Grod  should  be  thus  mindful  of  him  ?  Origen  quotes 
a  passage  from  the  True  Word,  in  which  Jews  and  Chris- 
tians, fancying  themselves  the  objects  of  divine  care,  are 
compared  to  bats,  or  to  ants  coming  forth  from  their  ant- 
hill, or  to  frogs  holding  council  in  a  marsh,  or  to  worms 
assembling  in  the  comer  of  a  dunghill,  disputing  with  each 
other  which  of  them  were  the  greater  sinners,  and  claiming 
a  monopoly  of  God's  favour,'  The  insignificance  of  man  is 
a  favourite  theme  with  Celsus,  on  which  he  expatiates  with 
cynical  delight  He  scouts  the  idea  that  man  was  made 
in  God's  image ;  ridicules  the  notion  that  man  is  an  end 
for  God  in  His  works  of  creation  and  providence,  any  more 
than  other  creatures ;  denies  man's  lordship  over  creation ; 
and  enters  into  elaborate  detail  to  prove  that  man  is  not 
much,  if  at  all  superior  to  the  beasts  in  his  intellectual, 
moral,  and  religious  endowments.*  His  statements  on  the 
last  mentioned  topic  may  appear  only  the  whimsical  ex- 
aggerations of  one  bent  on  overwhelming  with  ridicule  the 
pretensions  of  man  to  the  supreme  position  in  creation,  and 
to  a  special  place  in  the  divine  regards.  But  in  the  main 
Celsus  was  quite  in  earnest  in  his  anthropological  specula- 
tions. His  views  regarding  man's  position  in  the  world 
and  in  relation  to  God,  were  in  keeping  with  his  attitude  as 
the  opponent  of  Christianity,  and  formed  an  essential  part 
of  his  pantheistic  theory  of  the  universe. 

Celsus  further  maintained  that  the  end  of  the  incarnation 
— the  cure  of  moral  evil — is  unattainable.  His  doctrine 
of  evil  was  to  this  effect.     Evil  is  not  God's  work ;    it  is 

»  Libk  iv.  16.  «  lib.  iv.  28.  »  Lib.  iv.  84-99. 


14  APOLOGETICS. 

inlierent  in  matter  which  is  eternal  and  not  made  by  God, 
for  God  makes  nothing  mortal  or  material,  but  only  the 
spiritual.^  The  origin  of  evil  being  traceable  to  a  necessity 
of  nature,  its  amount  is  invariable.*  Thus  the  possibility 
of  redemption  is  excluded,  as  it  is  also  by  another 
doctrine  held  by  Celsus,  that  all  the  changes  which  take 
place  in  the  universe  are  subject  to  the  law  of  periodicity. 
That  which  has  been  shall  be.  The  present  state  of  things 
will  reproduce  itself  in  some  future  seon,  any  present  state 
of  things  you  choose  to  think  of.  This  law  of  periodicity, 
applied  by  the  Stoics  even  to  the  gods,  Celsus  contended 
for  chiefly  with  reference  to  human  history.  "  Similar," 
he  said,  "  from  beginning  to  end  is  the  period  of  mortals; 
and  according  to  the  appointed  revolutions  the  same  things 
always  by  necessity  have  been,  are,  and  shall  be."^  As 
Origen  remarks,  this  doctrine,  if  true,  is  manifestly  sub- 
versive of  Christianity,  for  it  is  idle  to  speak  of  a  redemp- 
tive economy  acting  on  free  agents  by  moral  influence, 
where  a  reign  of  necessity  obtains ;  and  if  all  beings  must 
eventually  return  to  the  state  they  once  were  in,  then 
man's  unredeemed  state  must  have  its  turn,  and  Christ 
shall  have  died  in  vain.  A  sufficiently  gloomy  outlook ; 
but  the  Celsian  theory  has  its  cheering  side.  For  our  con- 
solation we  are  told  that  evil,  for  aught  we  know,  may  be 
good.  "  Thou  knowest  not  what  is  good  for  thee,  or  for 
another,  or  for  the  whole."  *  There  is,  of  course,  a  sense  in 
which  this  is  true ;  but  applied,  as  Celsus  meant  it  to  be 
applied,  to  sin  or  moral  evil,  it  means  that  sin  is  not  a 
reality ;  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  absolute  moral  evil ; 
that,  in  the  words  of  a  modern  writer,  "  evil  is  only  good 
in  the  making."  This  is  the  opiate  administered  by  pan- 
theism in  all  ages  to  soothe  conscience,  deaden  human 
sensibilities,  and  enable  men  to  contemplate  with  philoso- 
phic indifference  the  moral  condition  of  the  world,  as  at 
once  irremediable  and  not  needing  remedy. 

That  Celsus  conceived  God  pantheistically  is  manifest 
I  Lib.  It.  62.  »  Lib.  iv.  62.  •  Lib.  iv.  67.  •  Lib.  It.  70. 


INTRODUCTION.  15 

from  the  extracts  from  his  work  preserved  by  Origen. 
God,  he  taught,  cannot  be  reached  by  reason,  and  cannot 
be  named.  What  the  sun  is  ainonsr  thinirs  visible,  beiuff 
neither  eye  nor  sight,  but  the  cause  of  seeing  to  the  eye, 
and  to  sight  of  its  possibility,  and  to  things  visible  of  their 
being  seen,  and  yet  not  the  cause  for  himself  of  being  seen, 
that  is  God  among  the  things  conceived  of  by  the  mind. 
He  is  neither  mind,  nor  thought,  nor  knowledge,  but  the 
cause  to  the  mind  of  knowing,  and  to  thought  of  its  being 
possible,  and  to  knowledge  of  its  existence,  and  to  all 
objects  of  knowledge,  and  to  truth  itself,  and  to  being 
itself,  of  being ;  being  Himself  beyond  all  things,  knowable 
by  a  certain  ineffable  power.^  This  statement  is  not  abso- 
lutely incompatible  with  theistic  conceptions  of  God,  and 
accordingly  Origen  does  not  seem  inclined  to  find  much 
fault  with  it,  here  as  elsewhere  displaying  characteristic 
magnanimity,  as  one  ever  ready  to  receive  in  a  candid  spirit 
things  well  said  by  Celsus,  or  by  the  Greek  philosophers, 
whose  opinions  he  espouses.  But  the  idea  naturally  suggested 
by  the  comparison  of  God  to  the  sun  is  that  of  a  Being 
unnameable,  unknowable,  in  some  sense  the  cause  of  all 
being,  yet  unlike  anything  that  is,  as  the  sun  is  unlike  the 
eye,  while  it  is  that  which  enables  the  eye  to  see;  not  even 
like  the  human  mind,  or  possessing  the  properties  of  mind, 
thought,  and  knowledge ;  a  being  whose  nature  cannot  be 
inferred  from  any  of  his  works,  material  or  mental,  of  whom 
nothing  can  be  predicated,  not  even  being  itself. 

Quite  consistently  with  his  pantheistic  mode  of  conceiv- 
ing God,  Celsus  was  an  earnest  apologist  for  polytheism ; 
for  all  the  world  over,  and  in  all  ages,  pantheism  in  theory 
means  polytheism  in  practice.  The  supreme  deity  of  this 
philosopher  was  quite  superior  to  jealousy,  had  no  desire 
to  enjoy  a  monopoly  of  worship,  could  magnanimously 
tolerate  a  host  of  minor  divinities,  each  receiving  his  share 
of  homage ;  for  were  they  not  all  parts  of  him,  or  modes 
of  him  ?  He  deemed  all  religions  tolerable  (Christianity 
1  lib.  Tii.  0.  46, 


16  APOLOGETICS. 

excepted),  because  all  the  particular  deities  were  in  his 
view  manifestations  of  the  Great  Unknown.  Polytheism 
he  justified  by  the  simple  process  of  reasoning :  whatever 
is,  is  part  of  God,  reveals  God,  serves  God,  therefore  may 
rationally  be  worshipped.  Christianity  he  excepted  from 
this  wide  toleration,  because  it  worshipped  a  jealous  God 
who  was  not  content  to  be  one  of  many.  This  jealousy 
ascribed  to  God  by  monotheistic  religions  radically  signifies 
that  God  is  a  Being  to  whom  moral  distinctions  are  real. 
The  god  of  Celsus,  the  god  of  pantheism,  is  not  jealous, 
because  he  is  not  the  Holy  One,  but  simply  the  Absolute. 
The  category  of  the  ethical  is  merged  in  the  wider  all* 
embracing  category  of  Being.* 

Section  III. — Ftm  TTwught  in  the  Eighteenth  Century, 

Literature. — ^Leland,  A  View  of  the  Principal  Deistieal 
Writers,  1754;  Lechler,  Geschichte  des  Unglischen  Deiemvs, 
1841 ;  L.  Noack,  Die  Freidenker  in  der  Religion,  1853  (this 
book  gives  an  account  of  the  representatives  of  religious 
free  thought  in  England,  France,  and  Germany);  A.  S. 
Farrar,  Bampton  Lectures  on  the  History  of  Free  ThougM 
in  Religion,  1862 ;  M.  Pattison,  Essay  on  "  the  Tendencies 
of  Eeligious  Thought  in  England  from  1688  to  1750," 
in  Essays  and  Reviews,  1860;  Leslie  Stephen,  History  of 
English  Thought  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  1876;  Cairns, 
Unbelief  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  Cunningham  Lecture, 
1880. 

The  interest  of  the  attack  considered  in  last  section  lid» 
in  the  fact  that  it  was  made  near  the  beginning  of  our  era, 
and  shows  how  Christianity  presented  itself  to  hostile 
minds  when  it  was  yet  young.  The  interest  of  "  Deism " 
lies  in  its  proximity  to  our  own  time,  and  in  the  fact  that 
it  shows  how  Christianity  appeared  to  a  generation  whose 
thoughts,  though  in  many  respects  antiquated,  have  been 
more  or  less  assimilated  by  the  present  generation.  As 
was  to  be  expected,  the  point  of  view  of  the  eighteenth 
*  For  the  views  of  CeLsoB  on  polytheum,  vide  lik  riiL  of  Origen's  waA. 


INTRODUCTION.  17 

century  is  greatly  changed  from  that  of  the  second.     In 

the  time  of  Celsus  it  was  the  central  truth  of  the  Christian 
faith  that  was  assailed ;  in  the  eighteenth  century  it  was 
its  literary  documents.  The  Protestant  doctrine  of  Scrip- 
ture as  the  infallible  record  of  a  supernatural  revelation, 
setting  forth  "  what  man  is  to  believe  concerning  God,  and 
what  duty  God  requires  of  man,"  was  presupposed,  and 
the  aim  of  unbelief  was  to  assail  the  conception  of  such 
a  revelation  as  unnecessary  and  unverifiable,  and  its  record 
as  lacking  the  characteristics  that  a  book  professing  to 
contain  such  a  revelation  ought  to  possess.  The  move- 
ment was  European,  and  found  many  eager  advocates  in 
England,  Germany,  and  France. 

In  England  the  history  of  deism  covers  a  period  of 
about  a  hundred  years,  commencing  from  the  middle  of 
the  seventeenth  and  extending  to  about  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century;  its  rise  being  represented  by  Lord 
Herbert  of  Cherbury,  and  its  decline  by  Lord  Bolingbroke. 
The  great  controversy  embraced  a  large  variety  of  topics, 
each  successive  adversary  assailing  the  common  object  of 
hostility  from  his  own  chosen  point  of  attack,  and  all 
combined  compelling  Christianity,  through  her  champions, 
to  defend  herself  in  every  direction  in  which  she  appeared 
weak  to  the  doubting  spirit  of  the  age.  One  assailed  the 
divine  Person  of  the  founder  of  the  faith,^  another  its 
prophetic  foundations,'  a  third  its  miraculous  attesta- 
tions,* a  fourth  its  canonical  literature.*  Another  group  of 
opponents  took  up  a  more  general  ground,  and  sought 
to  show  that  a  special  revelation  was  unnecessary, 
impossible,  or   unverifiable,  the  religion    of   nature   being 

*  Charles  Blonnt,  in  a  traoslatioii  of  the  two  first  books  of  the  work  of 
Philostratus  on  Apollonius  of  Tyana,  famished  with  oopioas  and  character- 
istic notes,  1680. 

^  Anthony  Collins,  in  The  Grounds  and  Reasons  of  the  Ohnstian  BeUgion, 
1713. 

'  Woolston,  in  A  Discourse  on  the  Miracles  cf  owr  SaviouTf  1727 ;  replied 
to  by  Lardner. 

*  Toland,  in  Amyntor,  1698 ;  replied  to  by  Jones  on  the  Qkoshl 

B 


18  APOLOGETICa. 

sufficient  and  superior  to  all  religions  of  positive  institu- 
tion. This  was  the  common  position  cf  all  deists,  but 
some  made  it  their  business  to  emphasise  it.  To  this 
class  belonged  Dr.  Tyndal,  author  of  Christianity  as  Old 
as  the  Creation^  who  is  entitled  to  be  viewed  as  the  repre- 
sentative and  spokesman  of  English  deism,  whether  regard 
be  had  to  the  merits  of  his  book,  or  to  the  fact  that  he, 
more  than  any  other  of  the  free-thinking  fraternity,  seems 
to  have  been  in  the  mind  of  Bishop  Butler  when  he  wrote 
his  famous  Analogy.  The  very  title  of  Tyndal's  book  gives 
him  a  certain  claim  to  the  place  of  representative  man, 
supplying  as  it  does  a  fit  motto  for  a  scheme  of  thought 
which  believed  natural  uninstructed  common  reason  to 
be  a  sufficient  and  safe  guide  in  religion,  and  disclaimed 
all  indebtedness  to  Christianity  except  in  so  far  as  it  was 
a  return  to  the  simplicity  of  nature,  a  protest  against 
the  corruption  of  natural  religion  by  superstition,  even 
as  deism  was  itself  a  protest  against  a  degenerate  Christi- 
anity corrupted  by  professed  believers. 

Deistical  attacks  were  generally  not  straightforward,  the 
real  design  being  masked,  and  the  point  formally  proved 
not  the  true  opinion  of  the  writer,  but  that  which  he 
deemed  it  safe  to  utter.  It  is,  however,  not  difficult  to 
ascertain  Tyndal's  position.  It  was  as  follows:  God  can 
be  known  sufficiently  by  all  men  through  the  use  of  their 
natural  faculties.  The  religion  of  nature,  based  on  this 
naturally  acquired  knowledge  of  God's  being  and  character, 
is  perfect.  That  it  is  so  is  proved  by  the  fact  of  its  being 
used  as  the  touchstone  of  aU  positive,  instituted,  tradi- 
tionary religions ;  also  by  the  lact  that  manifold  deplorable 
mischiefs  have  arisen  wherever  the  notions  dictated  by 
reason  concerning  God  have  been  departed  from.  Being 
perfect,  the  religion  of  reason  excludes  all  revelation  except 
such  as  is  merely  a  republication  of  the  law  of  nature.  A 
revelation  distinct  in  its  contents  from  the  religion  of 
reason  can  differ  only  in  adding  to  the  eternal  moral  laws 

>  Pnblished  in  17W. 


INTKODUCTION.  19 

of  the  universe  positive  precepts,  which  are  simply  means 
towards  ends,  and  derive  their  obligation  from  the  arbitrary 
will  of  the  lawgiver.  It  is,  however,  not  credible  that  a 
good  God  would  restrict  hu»-aan  liberty  by  such  arbitrary 
impositions.  Nor  can  it  be  believed  that  a  professed 
revelation  consisting  of  such  impositions  emanates  from 
God,  when  it  is  considered  what  baleful  effects — super- 
stition, immorality,  falsehood,  persecution,  strife,  division 
— have  sprung  from  faith  in  so-called  revelations  of  that 
kind.  Then,  apart  from  these  evils,  how  many  instituted 
religions  there  are !  How  ehall  we  choose  the  true  one 
save  by  the  aid  of  reason  ?  Nay,  this  aid  is  needed  even 
by  those  whom  the  chance  of  education  has  thrown  into 
the  true  traditionary  religion.  Mark  the  epithet  "  true  "  : 
it  is  printed  in  italics,  as  if  the  author  believed  ex  animo 
that  there  was  a  true  traditionary  religion.  But  the 
emphasised  adjective  simply  means  the  so-called  true. 
It  is  as  if  the  word  had  been  printed  in  inverted  commaa 
The  "  true "  traditionary  religion  needs  help  from  the 
religion  of  nature,  because  its  documents  are  far  from 
clear  in  meaning,  and  the  agents  of  revelation  were  very 
questionable  characters,  and  the  moral  tone  of  the  Bible 
is  far  from  unimpeachable,  and  even  the  teaching  of  Christ 
is  sometimes,  as  in  reference  to  riches  and  marriage,  very 
liable  to  be  misunderstood. 

But  if  the  religon  of  nature  be  so  clear  and  perfect,  how 
comes  it  that  superstition  is  at  all  times  so  very  prevalent, 
and  that  those  who  walk  in  the  sunlight  of  reason  are  ever 
a  small  minority  ?  This  is  a  question  for  which  the  deist 
was  bound  to  find  an  answer.  Tyndal's  answer  —  the 
answer  of  all  deists — was  summed  up  in  one  word,  Priest- 
craft. Many  a  hearty  curse  do  those  poor  priests  come  in 
for  in  the  pages  of  deistical  writers.  Bentley,  in  his  reply 
to  the  Discourse  of  Free  Thi7iking,  by  Anthony  Collins, 
explaining  the  significance  of  the  epithet  *'  free  "  in  the  title 
of  that  book,  says  that  it  comprises  two  ideas — presumption 
and  suspicion.     *  *Tis  a  firm  persuasion  among  them,"  he 


20  APOLOGETICS. 

remarks,  "that  there  are  but  two  sorts  in  mankind, 
deceivers  and  deceived,  cheats  and  fools.  Hence  it  is 
that,  dreaming  and  waking,  they  have  one  perpetual  themei, 
priestcraft.  This  is  just  like  the  opinion  of  Nero,  who 
believed  for  certain  that  every  man  was  guilty  of  the  same 
impurities  that  he  was  ;  only  some  were  craftier  than  others 
to  dissimulate  and  conceal  it.  And  the  surmise  in  both 
cases  must  proceed  from  the  same  cause,  either  a  very 
corrupt,  or  a  crazy  and  crack-brained  head,  or,  as  it  often 
happens,  both."^ 

The  widespread  prevalence  of  ignorance  and  darkness 
might  very  reasonably  be  held  to  show  the  need  of  a 
revelation  at  least  in  the  sense  of  a  republication  of  the 
religion  of  nature.  This  accordingly  was  what  the  apolo- 
gists of  last  century,  such  as  Dr.  Samuel  Clarke,*  chiefly 
insisted  on.  No  attempt  was  made  by  them  to  disparage 
reason  and  natural  religion.  The  fact  was  so  far  other- 
wise that  one  might  with  more  plausibility  allege  that 
too  much  importance  was  assigned  by  them  to  these,  and 
too  little  to  those  aspects  of  Christianity  which  rise  above 
reason  into  the  region  of  mystery.  Even  Butler  could 
write  such  a  sentence  as  this:  "For  though  natural 
religion  is  the  foundation  and  principal  part  of  Christi- 
anity, it  is  not  in  any  sense  the  whole  of  it."*  Christi? 
anity  was  regarded  by  its  advocates,  in  those  days,  too 
much  as  a  matter  which  could  be  proved  by  reason,  and 
which  existed  to  be  reasoned  about,  and  which  could  be 
shown  to  be  true  by  plain  common  -  sense  arguments 
appreciable  by  any  ordinary  man ;  the  aspects  of  the 
system  which  did  not  admit  of  such  treatment  being 
quietly  allowed  to  fall  into  the  background.  "  Common- 
sense  "  was  the  watchword  of  the  age ;  a  very  good  thing 

^  Remarks  upon  a  late  Dieeowrse  lif  Free  Thinking,  by  Phileleuthero$ 
Lipsiensis,  p.  12. 

^  Discourses  on  the  Evidences  of  Natural  and  Revealed  Religion.  A  review 
of  this  work  forms  the  last  f  hapter  of  Tyndal's  Christianity  as  Old  a$  the 
Creation. 

'  Analogy,  Part  II.  obap.  i 


INTRODUCTION.  21 

in  ita  way,  but  a  very  uncertain  test  of  truth,  often  a  very 
vulgar  thing,  and  always  a  very  fragmentary  thing,  viewed 
as  an  inventory  of  man's  spiritual  endowments.  There  is 
a  great  deal  more  in  man  than  common  sense,  and  the 
men  of  the  eighteenth  century  do  not  seem  to  have  been 
aware  of  the  fact.  As  Mr.  Pattison  remarks :  "  The  defect 
of  the  eighteenth  century  theology  was  not  in  having  too 
much  good  sense,  but  in  having  nothing  besides."  * 

Another  prominent  defect  in  the  apologetic  of  that  time 
is  the  low  utilitarian  view  it  took  of  the  chief  end  of 
revealed  religion,  as  intended  to  serve  the  purpose  of  a 
moral  police  to  restrain  vice  and  keep  men  within  the 
bounds  of  decency.  It  was  strongly  insisted  on,  as  a  great 
recommendation  of  Christianity,  that  its  doctrines  had  a 
powerful  tendency  to  reform  men's  lives  and  correct  their 
manners.  This  truth  was  emphasised  very  specially  in 
connection  with  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life,  and  its 
certified  solemnities  of  bliss  and  woe.  The  fear  of  a 
future  hell,  it  was  gravely  pointed  out,  helped  to  make 
sinners  behave  themselves  here.  What  a  degradation  of 
religion  to  convert  it  into  a  mere  purveyor  of  motives  to 
morality,  and  hold  it  up  as  a  bugbear  to  frighten  evil 
livers  into  sobriety  and  righteousness,  their  secret  inclina- 
tions remaining  meanwhile  unchanged,  ready  to  break  forth 
anew  into  excess  and  wrong,  if  only  the  external  pressure 
could  be  got  rid  of !  The  aim  was  mean,  and  the  success, 
had  it  been  as  great  as  its  promoters  wished,  would  have 
been  a  gain  to  the  State  rather  than  to  the  kingdom  of 
God.  But  the  success  by  all  accounts  was  small  The 
age  of  the  "  Evidences  "  appears  to  have  been  an  age  of 
dissolute  morals.  What  else  was  to  be  expected  ?  What 
could  a  religion  whose  self-defence  appealed  to  nothing 
higher  than  the  common  sense  of  the  multitude,  and 
which  sought  to  influence  men  mainly  through  fear,  do 
for  the  healing  of  moral  evil  ?  It  had  nothing  to  inspire 
enthusiasm  in  noble  minds,  and  in  the  ignoble  it  was 
I  E$tay8  and  Reviews,  p.  297. 


22  APOLOGETICS. 

more  likely  to  provoke  a  desire  to  find  it  false,  than  to 
drive  them,  contrary  to  inclination,  into  the  practice  of 
virtue.  The  cure  of  infidelity  and  immorality  came  from 
a  different  quarter.  When  the  twilight  of  deism  had 
darkened  into  night,  there  came  from  heaven  a  new 
dawn,  bringing  a  restored  faith  in  a  more  spiritual 
Christianity,  which  was  its  own  witness  to  regenerated 
hearts. 

The  religious  movement  in  Germany  corresponding  to 
deism  in  England,  goes  by  the  name  of  Aufkldrung,  which 
may  be  rendered  in  English  Uluminism.  The  name  is 
to  a  certain  extent  a  key  to  the  nature  of  the  thing.  Ifc 
traces  its  origin  to  the  Cartesian  philosophy,  which  made 
clearness  the  test  of  truth.  Uluminism  is  the  idolatry 
of  clear  ideas.  This  idolatry  began  with  Wolff,  the 
systematiser  of  the  Leibnitzian  philosophy,  who  sought  to 
place  all  known  truth  on  a  basis  of  mathematical  demon- 
stration. It  was  carried  to  its  height  by  the  so-called 
popular  philosophers  of  the  Aufkldrutig,  who,  abandoning 
the  systematic  method  of  teaching  philosophy,  discussed 
philosophical  problems  in  an  easy  literary  style,  adapted  to 
the  taste  and  capacity  of  the  general  public.  In  the  hands 
of  these  writers  the  Cartesian  principle,  "  the  true  is  the 
clear,"  degenerated  into  an  overweening  value  for  vulgar 
common  sense.  This  excessive  respect  for  the  uninstructed 
human  understanding  meant  in  religion  deism,  in  philo- 
sophy aversion  to  speculation,  in  morals  eudaemonism,  and 
in  all  departments  of  knowledge  indifference  to  history, 
acquaintance  with  what  men  of  former  times  thought 
being  rendered  unnecessary  by  the  light  each  man  carries 
in  his  own  breast.  From  all  these  characteristics  naturally 
flowed  another,  vpry  conspicuous  in  the  writings  of  the 
period,  self-conceit 

The  authors  of  the  Aufkldrung  were  very  numerous. 
The  best  known  now  are  Lessing  and  Keimarus  ;  Lessing 
through  the  intrinsic  merits  of  his  works ;  Eeimarus  by  aid 
of  Lessing,   who  published  extracts  from   his    MS.   work 


INTRODUCTION.  23 

entitled  A  Defence  of  the  National  Worshippers  oj  Ood} 
under  the  name  of  The  Wolfenluttel  Fragments,  and  by 
Strauss,  who  in  1862  published  a  digest  or  summary  of 
that  work,* 

Lessing's  general  attitude  is  suflBciently  indicated  in  two 
short  writings,  entitled  The  Testament  of  John  and  The 
Religion  of  Christ;  and  in  the  dramatic  composition 
entitled  Nathan  the  Wise.  The  first  -  named  writing  is 
a  dialogue  based  on  a  story  told  by  Jerome  concerning 
the  Apostle  John,  that  when  through  great  age  he  was  so 
feeble  that  he  had  to  be  carried  into  the  church,  and  was 
unable  to  speak  at  length,  he  was  wont  to  repeat  the 
words,  "  Children,  love  one  another  "  ;  and  being  asked  why 
he  did  this,  replied, "  It  is  the  command  of  our  Lord,  and  it 
is  enough."  The  moral  pointed  by  Lessing  is,  Christianity 
consists  in  love,  not  in  holding  any  particular  opinions 
concerning  the  founder  of  Christianity ;  in  Lessing's  own 
words :  "  At  the  first  the  salt  of  the  earth  swore  by  the 
Testament  of  John  (love  one  another);  now  the  salt  of 
the  earth  swear  by  the  Gospel  of  John" — as  understood  by 
the  theologians  to  teach  the  dogma  of  Christ's  divinity. 
The  other  piece,  The  Religion  of  Christ,  conveys  the  same 
thought  by  suggesting  a  distinction  between  the  religion 
which  Christ  Himself  practised,  and  the  Christian  religion 
which  worships  Christ  as  God,  the  two  being  held  to  be 
incompatible.  Nathan  the  Wise  is  a  poetic  tribute  to 
the  religion  of  reason,  and  has  not  inappropriately  been 
called  Lessing's  poetical  confession  of  faith.'  The  chief 
characters  in  the  story  are  persons  professing  three  kindred 
religions,  the  Mohammedan,  the  Jewish,  and  the  Christian ; 
at  first  they  exhibit  towards  each  other  the  religious  pre- 
judices in  which  they  have  been  educated,  but  at  last  they 

^  Apologie   oder  SehtUzsehri/l  /Or  die   vemUn/tigen    Verehrer    Oottea. 
Hamburg,  1767. 

*  Hermann  8a/muel  Beimarua  und  seine  SchtUzschrift  fur  die  vemunftigen 
Verehrer  OoUes. 

•  Zeller,  Geachichte  der  Deutschen  Philoaophie. 


24  APOLOGETICS. 

are  discovered  to  be  members  of  the  same  family.  The 
moral  is,  that  those  who  are  divided  by  different  positive 
religions  are  brethren  as  men ;  that  men  and  religions  are 
to  be  respected  in  proportion  as  they  practise  or  inculcate 
humane  feeling ;  that  that  which  is  common  to  all  religions 
is  of  more  value  than  that  which  is  peculiar  to  any  one  of 
them ;  and  that  men  are  to  be  guided  not  by  what  they 
believe,  but  by  what  they  do,* 

While  heart  and  soul  devoted  to  the  religion  of  reason, 
Lessing  was  tolerant  in  his  attitude  towards  positive  religion 
as  at  least  a  necessary  evil.  He  did  not,  like  the  English 
deists,  regard  instituted  religions  as  the  inventions  of 
priests  and  tyrants  for  selfish  ends,  but  more  genially  con- 
sidered them  as,  if  inventions,  at  least  useful  inventions 
suited  to  the  prevailing  state  of  culture ;  or  as  the  special 
forms  which  the  religion  of  nature,  the  soul  of  all  religion, 
took  among  the  nations,  just  as  the  various  forms  of  civil 
government  are  embodiments  of  natural  right.  Of  this 
general  tolerance  for  positive  religions,  the  Jewish  and  the 
Christian  of  course  got  the  benefit.  Lessing  regarded  both 
as  useful  in  their  time  when  the  human  race  was  in  its 
spiritual  minority,  but  as  destined  to  be  superseded  by  the 
pure  religion  of  reason  when  the  race  arrived  at  its 
majority,  and  justifiably  neglected  at  all  times  by  such  as 
stand  in  no  need  of  leading-strings.  This  view  of  what 
believers  call  revealed  religion  he  developed  in  the  well- 
known  tractate.  The  Education  of  the  Human  Race,  the 
leading  idea  of  which  is,  that  as  education  in  general  gives 
man  nothing  which  he  could  not  have  from  himself,  but 
gives  it  sooner  and  easier,  so  the  religious  education  con- 
veyed by  revelation  gives  to  the  human  race  nothing  to 
which  human  reason  left  to  itself  would  not  eventually 
come,  but  only  gave  and  gives  the  most  important  of  these 
things,  the  essential  truths  of  religion,  earlier  and  more 
easily      In  this  process  of  education  the  Old  Testament 

^  Those  who  desire  full  information  concerning  Lessing  and  his  writings 
may  consult  Lessing :  Sis  Lift  and  Writings,  by  James  Sime,  1877. 


INTRODUCTION.  25 

is  the  primer,  and  the  New  Testament  the  second  lesson- 
book,  the  latter  superseding  the  former,  and  being  destined 
itself  to  be  superseded  by  the  gospel  of  reason  ;  for  the 
end  of  all  education  is  to  make  the  pupil  independent  of 
the  means  by  which  his  training  is  carried  on. 

In  propounding  the  foregoing  theory  as  to  a  divine 
plan  for  the  religious  training  of  mankind,  Lessing  may 
be  said  to  have  acted  rather  as  the  apologist  than  as 
the  assailant  of  revelation.  His  large  genial  nature  gave 
houseroom  to  ideas  and  tendencies  not  easily  reconciled. 
He  was  no  mere  creature  of  the  Aufkldrung.  He  possessed 
virtues  which  he  did  not  acquire  in  that  school,  and  he 
was  free  from  some  of  its  most  characteristic  vices. 
Herder  called  him  the  "right  thinker  among  the  free 
thinkers."  The  eulogy  was  not  undeserved,  and  it  pos- 
sesses value  as  coming  from  one  who  was  worthy  to  be 
associated  with  Lessing,  as  occupying  a  far  more  appreciative 
attitude  towards  revelation  and  the  Bible  than  that  of  the 
illuminists.  Herder  taught  the  Germans  of  his  time  to 
set  a  high  value  on  the  prophetical  and  poetical  portions  of 
the  Old  Testament,  and  so  in  his  own  way  did  good  service 
as  an  apologist.^ 

While  thus  tolerant  and  genial  in  his  attitude  towards  all 
positive  religious,  Lessing  felt  lively  sympathy  with  men  of 
more  truculent  temper.  Hence  the  publication  of  The  Wolf- 
enhuttel  Fragments,  which,  like  the  whole  work  from  which 
they  were  extracted,  exhibit  the  worst  features  of  eighteenth 
century  unbelief,  and  especially  that  scurrilous  treatment 
of  the  Bible  and  of  Bible  characters  which  makes  the 
literature  of  deism  now  so  unsavoury  reading.     Of  this  no 

*  An  apologetic  literature  like  that  of  England  can  hardly  be  said  to  have 
existed  in  Germany  in  last  century.  One  book,  however,  of  a  professedly 
apologetic  character  may  here  be  mentioned,  that  of  F.  V.  Reinhard, 
Versuch  ■Bber  den  Plan  welchen  der  Stifter  der  Christlichen  Religion  zum 
Besten  der  Menschen  entwarf.  This  book  was  published  in  1781,  and  ran 
through  several  editions.  It  argues  from  the  mere  plan  which  Jesus  formed 
for  the  wellbeing  of  mankind  to  the  truth,  and  divine,  incomparable  value 
of  His  religion.     It  if  a  book  still  worth  reading. 


26  APOLOGETICS. 

samples  need  here  be  given.  For  one  thing  only  Reimaros 
deserves  mention  in  a  rapid  sketch  of  the  free  thought  of 
his  time,  viz.  the  distinct  manner  in  which  he  formulates 
his  fundamental  objections  to  the  Bible  as  the  record  of 
a  supposed  revelation.  His  criticism  is  based  on  two 
assumptions :  that  if  a  revelation  was  to  be  made  it  would 
be  given  in  the  form  of  a  system  of  doctrine  expressed  in 
precise  terms,  and  that  men  of  blameless  lives  would  be 
chosen  to  be  the  agents  of  revelation.  Of  course  he  had 
no  difi&culty  in  showing  that  neither  of  these  requirements 
is  satisfied  by  the  Scriptures,  and  proceeding  triumphantly 
to  the  conclusion  that  they  are  not  the  word  of  God.  But 
his  inference  is  to  be  disallowed  because  his  assumptions 
are  false.  In  making  these  assumptions  he  showed  himself 
to  be  a  disciple  at  once  of  the  philosopher  Wolf  and  of  the 
Protestant  dogmatists  of  the  seventeenth  century ;  of  the 
former  in  his  love  of  system,  of  the  latter  in  taking  over 
from  them  the  doctrinaire  conception  of  revelation,  as 
consisting  in  the  supernatural  communication  of  a  body  of 
theological  truth  through  the  writers  of  the  sacred  books. 
The  use  he  made  of  that  old  orthodox  conception  as  a  weapon 
of  attack  on  the  faith  shows  the  need  for  revising  the  idea  of 
revelation,  and  for  asking  whether  revelation  and  the  Bible 
are  synonymous  terms,  and  whether  the  chief  end  of  re- 
velation be  indeed  to  communicate  theological  instruction.*  ~ 
In  the  closing  chapter  of  his  book  on  Eeimarus,  Strauss 
remarks  on  the  inconsistency  of  which  eighteenth  century 
unbelievers,  like  Eeimarus,  were  guilty  in  freely  imputing 
to  the  agents  of  revelation,  not  excepting  Jesus  and  the 
apostles,  trickery  and  fraud,  while  recognising  the  purity  of 
Christ's  teaching,  and  the  enthusiasm  with  which  the 
apostles  propagated  the  lying  invention  of  the  resurrection. 
The  explanation  of  the  riddle  he  offers  is  to  this  effect : 
The  men  of  the  eighteenth  century  assumed  the  historical 
truth  of  the  Bible  narratives,  and  yet  were  unbelievers  in 
^he  miraculoua  But  the  caput  mortuv/m  which  remains 
'  On  tMs  vide  my  book  on  Tlie  Ch^f  End  qf  BevelcUion. 


DTTEODUCTION.  27 

after  the  spirit  of  the  divine  has  departed  out  of  a  revela- 
tion and  miracle  —  history  is  deceit.  The  nineteenth 
century  gets  over  the  difficulty  by  not  assuming  the  truth 
of  the  narratives,  but  rather  regarding  the  miraculous  as  an 
after-growth,  a  moss  overspreading  in  the  course  of  ages 
the  historical  foundation,  without  conscious  intention  on 
the  part  of  any  one  to  gain  currency  for  falseliood.  It 
also  recognises  the  importance  of  the  imagination  as  a 
factor  in  human  history,  in  contrast  to  the  men  of  the 
earlier  century,  who  set  value  only  on  common  sense,  and 
saw  in  man  only  a  reasoning  being.  Hence  the  difference 
between  the  two  ages  in  their  respective  treatment  of 
positive  religions.  The  former  traced  the  origin  of  all 
positive  religions  to  conscious  fraud ;  the  latter  refuses  to 
believe  that  any  religion  had  its  origin  in  fraud.  The 
former  levelled  down  all  positive  religions  to  one  low  moral 
level  of  imposture ;  the  latter  levels  up  all  positive  religions 
to  the  same  high  level  of  sincere,  though  it  may  be 
mistaken,  hallucinated  conviction.  Broadly  speaking,  the 
distinction  thus  taken  between  the  two  ages  is  well 
founded.  Whether  the  modem  method  of  disposing  of  the 
miraculous  be  more  successful  than  that  which  it  has 
superseded  is  another  question.  Deceivers,  or  self- 
deceived,  such  are  the  alternatives.  The  alternative  now 
in  favour  is  certainly  the  less  injurious  to  human  nature, 
and  the  less  offensive  to  religious  feeling. 

Of  French  free  thought  in  last  century,  which  was  to 
some  extent  an  echo  or  product  of  English  deism, 
Voltaire  and  Eousseau  are  the  leading  representatives. 
A  full  history  of  the  movement  would  have  to  speak  of 
both,  but  in  this  hasty  outline  Eousseau  alone  need  be 
referred  to.  He  is  much  the  more  worthy  spokesman  of 
the  religion  of  nature.  Voltaire's  works  are  now  unread- 
able, but  the  Confession  of  Faith  of  a  Savoyard   Vicar}  in 

'  It  forms  a  part  of  Emile,  a  treatise  on  education  in  the  shape  of  an  ideal 
history,  and  sets  forth  what  the  author  thinks  should  be  taught  the  pupil, 
*t  the  proper  age,  on  the  subject  of  religion. 


28  apolooeucs. 

which  Bonsseau  exponnds  his  religions  position,  9Ad.  still 
be  read  with  a  thrill  of  delight.  It  is  worthy  to  be 
associated  with  Nathan  the  Wise  as  a  poetical  eulogium  on 
natural  religion,  and  it  is  charged  with  a  passion  and  a 
pathos  all  its  own.  It  is  in  keeping  throughout  with  the 
spirit  of  the  eighteenth  century,  both  in  method  and  in 
substance,  so  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  offer  an  elaborate 
analysis  of  its  contents.  The  source  of  truth  for  the 
confessor  is  plain  common  sense,  the  inner  light,  la  lumiere 
interieure,  and  the  revelation  such  as  we  might  expect  from 
such  a  quarter.  He  proves  the  being  and  attributes  of  God 
to  his  own  satisfaction  by  familiar  processes  of  reasoning, 
including  the  argument  from  design.  He  assigns  to  man, 
in  virtue  of  his  intelligence  and  freedom,  a  sovereign  place 
in  the  world.  While  claiming  for  man  this  exalted  position, 
he  at  the  same  time  owns  that  he  is  a  slave,  through  the  power 
of  the  passions  inherent  in  the  body.  He  acknowledges  the 
existence  of  moral  evil,  but  strives  to  clear  God  of  all 
blame  for  it,  and  to  reduce  its  amount  to  a  minimum,  in 
this  as  in  other  respects  true  to  the  optimism  characteristic 
of  the  deistic  type  of  thought.^  He  asserts  the  competency 
of  conscience  to  be  the  guide  of  life,  and  follows  its  guid- 
ance as  f£ir  as  the  body  with  its  imperious  desires  will 
allow.  He  cherishes  devout  sentiments  towards  the  Deity, 
refusing,  however,  to  pray  for  any  blessing,  spiritual  or 
temporal,  and  contenting  himself  with  the  one  all-sufficient 
utterance  of  the  pious  mind,  "  Thy  will  be  done." 

Having  finished  his  exposition  of  the  creed  of  natural 
theism,  the  author  of  Emile  makes  the  vicar  of  Savoy 
indicate  his  attitude  towards  revealed  religion.  He  starts 
with  the  assertion  that  natural  religion  is  sufficient  for  all 
practical  purposes.  What  need  for  more  ?  What  purity  of 
morals,  what  dogma  useful  to  man  can  be  drawn  from  a 
positive  religion  that  cannot  be  reached  by  the  use  of 
reason  ?     But  suppose  a  positive  religion  to  be  required. 

*  Thi«  will  be  more   ftilly   explained   In    Book  I.   obo^    ▼.,  oo   "Tli« 
Deistic  Theory  of  the  Univerae." 


INTRODUCTION.  29 

There  are  many  such  ;  how  find  out  the  right  one  ?  Either 
they  are  all  alike  good,  as  various  embodiments  of  the  one 
Catholic  religion  of  nature,  or  there  must  be  signs  by 
which  the  solitary  acceptable  one  can  be  known — proofs 
accessible  to  all  men  everywhere;  for  if  there  were  a 
religion  on  earth  outside  of  which  salvation  was  impossible, 
and  in  one  place  in  the  world  a  single  honest  mortal  had  not 
been  impressed  with  its  evidence,  the  God  of  that  religion 
would  be  an  unjust,  cruel  tyrant  But  the  examination  of 
these  evidences  is  a  very  serious  affair,  so  serious  as  to 
amount  to  a  redudio  ad  dbsurdum  of  the  theory  which 
makes  a  revealed  religion  necessary  to  salvation.  In  view  of 
what  the  task  involves,  it  is  not  credible  that  God  can  have 
required  such  an  amount  of  toil  and  trouble  in  order  to  salva- 
tion. **  I,  for  one,"  protests  the  vicar,  "  have  never  been  able 
to  believe  that  God  ordained  me  under  pain  of  damnation  to 
be  learned.  I  have  therefore  shut  all  the  books.  There 
is  one  only,  open  to  the  eyes  of  all,  the  Book  of  Nature." 

While  thus  declining  to  believe  in  the  necessity  of  a 
revelation  recorded  in  a  book  written  in  learned  tongues, 
Eousseau  speaks  with  marked  respect  of  Christianity  and 
its  Author.  The  holiness  of  the  gospel,  he  confesses,  is  an 
argument  which  speaks  to  his  heart,  and  to  which  he 
should  be  sorry  to  find  a  good  reply.  Can  a  book  at  once 
so  sublime  and  so  simple  be  the  work  of  men  ?  Can  it 
be  that  He  whose  history  it  relates  is  no  more  than  a  man  f 
Shall  we  say  that  the  history  of  the  Gospels  is  an  invention  ? 
No  Jewish  authors  could  invent  that  tone,  that  morality. 
The  gospel  has  characters  of  truth  so  striking,  so  perfectly 
inimitable,  that  the  inventor  would  be  more  astonishing 
than  the  hero.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  that  same  gospel 
is  full  of  incredible  things  opposed  to  reason  which  no  man 
of  sense  can  receive.  What  is  to  be  done  in  presence  of 
such  contradictions  ?  "  To  be  modest  and  circumspect,  to 
respect  in  silence  what  one  can  neither  reject  nor  compre- 
hend, and  to  humble  oneself  before  the  Great  Being,  who 
alone  knows  the  truth.* 


30  APOLOGETICS. 

Section  IV. — Ftm  TTwugM  in  the  Present  Time. 

The  contrast  drawn  by  Strauss  between  eighteenth  and 
nineteenth  century  unbelief  might  be  indefinitely  extended 
We  live  in  a  different  world,  and,  whether  believers  or 
unbelievers,  find  ourselves  related  to  a  greatly  altered 
environment.  Science  has  made  a  mighty  advance,  new 
philosophies  have  arisen,  biblical  criticism  has  been  at 
work,  the  religions  of  mankind  have  been  studied  on  the 
comparative  method.  The  result  is  that  new  questions 
have  come  to  the  front,  unbelief  has  assumed  new  forms, 
and  faith  has  been  compelled  to  defend  itself  with  new 
weapons.  To  indicate  the  full  extent  of  the  change  would 
take  longer  space  than  can  be  spared ;  it  must  suffice  here 
to  point  out  the  altered  attitude  in  reference  to  the  subject 
of  revelation  and  the  Scriptures.* 

In  two  respects  the  free  thought  of  our  time  differs 
from  that  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  first  is  that 
referred  to  by  Strauss.  The  offensive  depreciatory  criticism 
of  the  Bible,  its  authors,  and  principal  characters,  too 
common  in  the  earlier  period,  especially  in  England,  has 
given  place  to  a  sincere  recognition  of  the  sacred  volume 
as  of  exceptional  value,  and  worthy  of  "  an  high  and 
reverend  esteem."  Modern  unbelief,  however,  does  notj, 
any  more  than  that  of  the  eighteenth  century,  concede  the 
claim  advanced  for  the  Bible  to  authority  as  a  rule  of  faith. 
Not  only  so;  it  does  not  admit  that  the  Bible  itself 
supplies  any  basis  or  justification  for  such  a  claim,  and 
this  is  tl  le  second  point  of  difference  between  it  and  the 
unbelief  of  the  earlier  time.  The  free  thinkers  of  the 
eighteen  jh  century  accepted  from  Protestant  scliolastic 
theologians  their  doctrinaire  conception  of  revelation  as 
consisting  in  the  communication  of  dogmas  concerning  God, 
man,  the  world,  and  their  relations,  and  of  the  Bible  as  the 
repository  of  such  dogmas,  and  reasoned  destructively  from 

^  For  a  more  extended  contrast  between  the  free  thought  of  th«  tw« 
wnturies,  vide  Rook  I.  chap,  vi.,  on  "Modern  Speculative  Theism." 


INTRODUCTION.  81 

this  idea.  The  tendency  of  our  time,  on  the  contrary,  is  to 
regard  the  Bible  as  profitable,  not  for  doctrine  but  for  life, 
as  edifying  "  literature "  rather  than  as  divinely  -  given 
instruction  in  "  dogma  " ;  as  fitted  and  intended  solely  for 
religious  edification,  and  laying  no  claim  to  »ny  such 
function  as  scholastic  theology  has  ascribed  to  it. 

In  this  altered  view  of  the  Bible,  the  nineteenth  century 
\b  in  close  sympathy  with  a  great  free  thinker  of  the 
seventeenth.  Spinoza  is  nearer  us  than  are  the  deists 
and  illuminists.  He  is  indeed,  as  the  late  Mr.  Matthew 
Arnold  remarked,  coming  to  the  front,*  insomuch  that 
there  is  no  man  whose  writings  it  is  more  worth  while 
studying  in  order  to  understand  modem  thought  in  philo- 
sophy and  religion.  The  work  in  which  his  views  on  the 
Bible  are  stated  is  the  Tradatus  Theologico-Politicus,  the 
professed  design  of  which  is  to  offer  an  apology  for  free 
thought — a  defence  of  the  liberty  of  philosophising  on  all 
subjects  human  and  divine,  as  not  forbidden  by  a  right 
use  of  the  Scriptures,  and  not  contrary  to  the  true  interest 
of  the  State.'  The  position  contended  for  by  the  author 
is  that  the  Bible  was  not  intended  to  teach,  and  does  not 
in  fact  teach,  any  definite  doctrines  concerning  God,  man, 
or  the  world,  but  has  for  its  sole  object  to  promote  the 
practice  of  piety,  justice,  and  charity.  A  man  may  make 
a  very  wise,  good  use  of  these  holy  writings,  and  be  a  true 
believer  in  the  Scripture  sense,  and  hold  all  manner  of 
opinions  concerning  God,  faith  and  piety  requiring  not  true 
but  pious  opinions.  To  support  this  position  Spinoza 
enters  on  a  discussion  of  the  nature  of  prophecy,  and  the 
value  of  miracles,  real  or  supposed,  as  a  source  of  know- 
ledge concerning  God.  With  regard  to  the  former,  he 
arrives  at  the  conclusion  that  we  must  not  seek  in  the 

*  VicU,  Essay  on  "  Spinoza  and  the  Bible  "  in  Essays  in  CriticUm. 

•  The  Tradatus  was  published  anonymously  in  1670,  two  years  after  the 
publication  of  Hobbes'  Lernafhan,  to  which  in  its  political  part  it  bears  a 
slose  resemblance.  The  occasion  of  its  being  written,  as  the  author  in- 
forms ixa  in  the  preface,  was  the  disputes  between  Calvinists  and  ▲rminianfly 
which  led  to  the  assembling:  of  the  Synod  of  Dort. 


32  APOLOGETICS. 

prophetic  writings  for  accurate  views  concerning  God,  but 
merely  for  such  teaching  as  tends  to  promote  piety  and 
morality,  the  prophets  not  being  raised  by  their  prophetic 
gift  above  liability  to  ignorance  and  error,  in  reference  to 
matters  which  have  no  bearing  on  charity  or  practice.  On 
the  subject  of  miracles  he  maintains  that  from  miraculous 
events,  however  viewed,  we  can  learn  neither  the  essence, 
the  existence,  nor  the  providence  of  God,  all  these  being 
best  perceived  from  the  fixed  and  immutable  order  of 
nature.  With  regard  to  the  apostolic  writings  in  the  New 
Testament,  he  admits  that  they  do  contain  dogmatic  or 
philosophic  elements,  but  he  seeks  to  rob  these  of  all 
claim  to  be  authoritative  statements,  by  the  suggestion 
that  the  apostles  wrote  not  as  prophets  but  as  theological 
doctors,  not  prefacing  their  utterances  with  a  "  Thus  saith  the 
Lord,"  but  addressing  their  views  to  reason,  and  supporting 
them  by  argument,  so  that  they  are  to  be  taken  for  what 
they  are  intrinsically  worth. 

As  a  protest  against  a  purely  scholastic  conception  of 
revelation,  these  views  of  Spinoza,  however  extreme,  are 
of  real  and  permanent  value.  How  far  they  are  from 
being  out  of  date  may  be  seen  from  such  a  work  as 
Literature  aiid  Dogma,  which  is  simply  the  Tradatus  done 
into  modern  English.  This  revival  in  recent  years  of  the 
bold  opinions  of  the  philosophic  Jew  of  Amsterdam  by  a 
distinguished  British  man  of  letters,  whose  works  have 
been  widely  and  sympathetically  read,  seems  to  give 
urgency  to  the  questions,  What  is  the  raison  cCitre  of  the 
Bible  ?  what  is  the  true  conception  of  revelation  ?  Two 
widely  contrasted  theories,  which  may  be  distinguished  as 
the  theological  and  the  ethical,  have  been  propounded. 
Which  of  the  two  is  the  true  theory,  or  are  they  both 
erroneous  in  different  directions  ? 

Spinoza's  view  of  the  Bible  was  based  on  a  preliminary 
inquiry  into  its  literary  characteristics,  along  the  lines  of 
investigation  made  familiar  to  us  by  the  modem  science 
of  biblical  introductioa     Whatever  we  may  think  of  his 


INTRODUCTION.  33 

final  conclnsion,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  his  method 
was  sound.  Criticism  must  precede  theological  construc- 
tion. "We  must  learn  all  we  can  about  the  history  of  these 
holy  writings  before  we  can  be  in  a  position  to  determine 
with  confidence  to  what  extent  or  intent  they  are  profit- 
able for  doctrine.  Modern  critics  are  busily  engaged  in 
the  study  in  which  Spinoza  played  the  part  of  a  pioneer, 
and  their  labours  cannot  be  ignored  by  any  one  who  would 
wisely  speak  as  to  the  didactic  value  of  the  Scriptures. 


CHAPTEB  n, 

THE  FUNCTION  AND  METHOD  OF  APOLOCTOTia 

Literature. — Sack,  ChrUtliche  Apologettk,  1829;  Drey, 
Dis  Apologetik,  etc.,  1838 ;  Lechler,  Ueber  den  Begriff  der 
Apologetik,  Studien  und  Kritiken,  1839 ;  Schleiermacher, 
KuTze  Darstellimg  des  Theologischen  Stvdiums,  1810;  De- 
litzsch,  System  der  Christlichen  Apologetik,  1869 ;  Baumstark, 
Christliche  Apologetik  auf  Anthropologischer  Grundlage, 
1872-89;  Ebrard,  Apologetik,  1874r-5  (translated  by  T.  & 
T.  Clark) ;  Chalmers,  Evidences  of  the  Christian  Hevelation. 

The  foregoing  historical  sketch  may  suffice  to  convey  a 
rudimentary  and  popular  idea  of  the  need  for  and  the 
nature  and  aim  of  Christian  Apologetic  In  this  chapter 
an  attempt  will  be  made  to  define  more  exactly  the 
function  and  method  of  this  branch  of  theological  study, 
and  to  indicate  the  plan  on  which  the  present  work  is 
constructed. 

Some  topics  of  •  scholastic  nature  discussed  in  recent 
apologetic  treatises  may  here  receive  a  passing  notice. 

German  writers,  always  systematic,  are  careful  to  die* 
tinguish  between  Apology  and  Apologetie.  There  is,  of 
course,  an  obvious  difference.  An  apology  is  a  particular 
defence  of  the  Christian  faith  with  reference  to  a  definite 
attack;  apologetic,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  science  of 

0 


34  APOLOGETICa 

apology,  or  the  defence  of  Christianity  reduced  to  system. 
A  recent  writer  thus  puts  the  distinction : — 

**  Apologetic  differs  from  simple  apology  by  method  based 
on  a  distinct  principle.  There  are  apologies  which  consist 
of  replies  to  definite  attacks  on  Christianity,  and  allow  their 
method  to  be  determined  by  these.  Such,  e.g.,  were  the 
two  apologies  of  Justin  Martyr,  which  deal  with  a  series 
of  single  attacks,  and  are  excellent  as  apologies,  though  very 
insufficient  as  apologetic.  Christian  apologetic  differs  from 
apology  in  this  that,  instead  of  allowing  its  course  to  be 
fixed  by  the  accidental  assaults  made  at  a  particular  time, 
it  deduces  the  method  of  defence  and  the  defence  itself  out 
of  the  essence  of  Christianity.  Every  apologetic  is  apology, 
but  not  every  apology  is  apologetic.  Apologetic  is  that 
science  which,  from  the  essence  of  Christianity  itself,  de» 
termines  what  kinds  of  attacks  are  possible,  what  sides  of 
Christian  truth  are  open  to  attack,  and  what  false  principles 
lie  at  the  foundation  of  all  attacks  actual  or  possible."  * 


According  to  this  definition,  the  business  of  the  sys- 
tematic apologist  is  not,  either  to  make  a  full  historical 
collection  of  all  past  apologies  for  Christianity,  or  to  add 
to  the  list  a  new  apology  directed  against  the  most  recent 
efforts  of  anti-Christian  thinkers,  but  to  make  students  in 
this  department  acquainted  with  the  sources  of  attack  and 
the  science  of  defence,  so  that  as  occasion  arises  they  may 
be  able  to  play  the  part  of  expert  apologists  themselves. 
Accepting  this  as  so  far  a  true  enough  account  of  the 
matter,  it  still  remains  open  to  consideration  whether  the 
method  of  historical  induction  would  not  be  a  good  way  of 
ascertaining  both  the  sources  of  attack  and  the  laws  of 
defence ;  also  whether  it  be  either  desirable  or  possible  so 
to  isolate  apologetic  from  contemporary  influences,  that 
it  shall  give  no  more  prominence  to  prevailing  forms  of 
unbelief  than  to  others  which  were  prevalent  in  former 
times.  These  two  things  it  is  certainly  important  to  know: 
what  answer  believers  of  other  ages  gave  to  those  who 

1  Ebrard,  Apoloyetii,  L  8. 


INTRODUCTION.  <I6 

examined  them  concerning  their  faith,  and  what  answer 
we  ourselves  should  give  to  those  who  examine  us  now ;  in 
other  words,  the  history  of  past  apologies,  and  the  apology 
which  befits  the  present  hour. 

At  one  in  regard  to  the  verbal  distinction  between 
apology  and  apologetic,  the  German  apologists  are  by  no 
means  agreed  as  to  the  precise  nature  of  this  theological 
discipline.  The  idea  of  apologetic  has  been  very  variously 
defined.  Sack  defines  it  as  the  theological  discipline  of  the 
ground  of  the  Christian  religion  as  a  divine  fact}  He 
distinguishes  between  an  ideal  and  a  real  side  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  while  assigning  to  systematic  theology  the  task 
of  developing  the  former  aspect  as  doctrine,  he  gives  to 
apologetic  the  function  of  dealing  with  the  reality  of 
Christianity,  and  so  laying  the  foundation  of  dogmatic. 
Sack  was  doubtless  led  into  this  obviously  one-sided  view 
by  the  circumstance  that  in  his  day  the  attack  against 
Christianity,  as  conducted,  e.g.,  by  Strauss  in  his  first  Leben 
Jesu,  was  directed  mainly  against  its  historical  foundation 
— a  fact  illustrating  the  manner  in  which  contemporary 
unbelief  almost  involuntarily  directs  the  course  of  apolo- 
getic thought.  Another  writer,  Drey,  belonging  to  the 
same  period,  and  subject  to  the  same  influences,  defines 
apologetic  as  the  philosophy  of  the  Christian  revelation  and 
of  its  history.  With  Lechler,  the  well-known  author  of  an 
excellent  history  of  English  deism,  the  point  of  view 
changes,  and  apologetic  becomes  the  scientific  demonstra- 
tion of  the  Christian  religion  as  the  absolute  religion,  the 
exclusively  and  ideally  true,  alone  satisfying  the  need  of 
man  as  a  religious  being,  and  setting  forth  the  pure  unmixed 
truth  concerning  God.*  This  view  is  not  less  one-sided 
than  the  former,  and  accordingly  a  third  class  of  writers, 
including  Ebrard  and  Delitzsch,  combine  the  two  aspects, 
and  assign  to  apologetic  a  double  function ;  on  the  one 

*  Ckristliche  Apologetik,  p.  4. 

'  Vide  the  aiticle  in  Sludien  und  Kritiktn  referred  to  «t  the  beginning  of 
this  chapter. 


3«  APOLOGETICS. 

hand,  that  of  defending  the  eternal  truth  contained  in 
Christianity  as  tested  by  the  facts  of  nature  and  of  human 
consciousness,  and  on  the  other,  that  of  defending  Chris- 
tianity as  a  historical  fact  viewed  in  its  organic  connection 
with  the  general  history  of  religion. 

Of  less  moment  is  the  question  as  to  the  proper  place 
of  apologetic  in  a  curriculum  of  theological  study.  Some 
have  disputed  its  claim  to  any  place  on  such  grounds  as 
these:  that  apologetic  has  no  distinct  material  to  work 
upon,  but  borrows  its  material  from  other  sciences ;  that 
its  function  of  defence  is  one  which  has  to  be  performed  by 
every  positive  science  for  itself,  and  by  theology  in  particular ; 
that  what  unbelievers  attack  is  always  some  dogmatic  truth, 
and  if  the  truth  assailed  be  properly  stated  and  handled  by 
the  systematic  theologian,  nothing  remains  to  be  said  by  the 
apologist ;  finally,  that  the  truths  of  Christianity  are  self- 
evidencing,  and  that  the  evidences  in  which  apologists 
usually  deal  are  of  little  intrinsic  value  as  means  of 
exorcising  doubt  and  propagating  faith.  The  larger  number 
take  a  more  favourable  view  of  the  claims  of  apologetic, 
and  are  also  on  the  whole  agreed  as  to  the  position  to  be 
assigned  to  it  in  the  systematic  study  of  theology.  The 
view  expressed  by  Schleiermacher  is  pretty  generally 
accepted,  viz.  that  apologetic  is  a  branch  of  philosophical 
theology,  and  as  such  ought  to  be  studied  at  the  commence-^ 
ment  of  a  theological  course.*  It  may  indeed  be  regarded 
as  the  mediator  between  philosophy  and  theology.  The 
need  for  such  mediation  has  been  indicated  by  representing 
philosophy  as  ending  with  blank  strokes  and  signs  of  inter- 
rogation, pointing  to  theology  as  the  science  which  starts 
where  philosophy  terminates,  and  answers  the  questions  it 
has  left  unanswered.*  But  the  attitude  of  philosophy  is 
not  always  so  modest  Not  unfrequently  it  leaves  the 
mind  of  the  student  prepossessed  with  opinions  concerning 
God,  man,  and  the  world  opposed  to  those  which  nndeidie 


*  Vide  Kurze  DarsteUtmg  de»  Theologiaeken  Btndit 

*  So  Delitzsch,  System  der  Ghriatlichen  Apolofft€Ht,  p^  8Ql 


INTRODUCTION.  87 

the  Christian  faith,  ao  that  at  least  one,  if  not  the  principal, 
function  of  apologetic  must  be  to  deal  with  anti-Christian 
prejudices,  that  Christianity  may  get  a  fair  hearing. 

These  last  words  indicate  the  point  of  view  from  which 
the  subject  on  hand  is  to  be  contemplated  in  the  present 
work,  and  which,  dismissing  scholastic  questions,  I  now 
proceed  more  fully  to  explain. 

Apologetic,  then,  as  I  conceive  it,  is  a  preparer  of  the 
way  of  faith,  an  aid  to  faith  against  doubts  whencesoever 
arising,  especially  such  as  are  engendered  by  philosophy  and 
scienca  Its  specific  aim  is  to  help  men  of  ingenuous  spirit 
who,  while  assailed  by  such  doubts,  are  morally  in  sympathy 
with  believers.  It  addresses  itself  to  such  as  are  drawn  in 
two  directions,  towards  and  away  from  Christ,  as  distinct 
from  such  as  are  confirmed  either  in  unbelief  or  in  faith. 
Defence  presupposes  a  foe,  but  the  foe  is  not  the  dogmatic 
infidel  who  has  finally  made  up  his  mind  that  Christianity 
is  a  delusion,  but  anti-Christian  thought  in  the  believing 
man's  own  heart  "A  man's  foes  shall  be  they  of  his  own 
household."  The  wise  apologist  instinctively  shuns  con- 
flict with  dogmatic  unbelief  as  futile.  He  desiderates  and 
assumes  in  those  for  whom  he  writes  a  certain  fairness  and 
openness  of  mind,  a  generous  spirit  under  hostile  bias 
which  he  seeks  to  remove,  a  bias  due  to  no  ignoble  cause, 
animated  even  in  its  hostility  by  worthy  motives.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  with  equal  decision  he  avoids  partisanship 
with  dogmatic  belief.  He  regards  himself  as  a  defender  of 
the  catholic  faith,  not  as  a  hired  advocate  or  special  pleader 
for  a  particular  theological  system.  He  distinguishes 
between  religion  and  theology,  between  faith  and  opinion, 
between  essential  doctrines  and  the  debateable  dogmas  of 
the  schools.  There  are  many  special  views  held  by 
believers,  of  which,  whether  true  or  false,  he  takes  no 
cognisance ;  many  controversies  internal  to  faith,  such  as 
that  between  Calvinists  and  Arminians,  with  which  he  does 
not  intermeddle. 

The  attitude  and  temper  characteristic  of  the  apologist 


38  AFOLOGETIO& 

disappoint  extremists  on  both  sides.  The  thoroughgoing 
unbeliever  is  dissatisfied  with  him  because,  while  conceding 
much,  he  does  not  give  up  everything.  The  dogmatising 
believer,  on  the  other  hand,  is  displeased  because  he  con- 
cedes anything,  or  even  seems  indifferent  to  the  minutest 
items  of  an  elaborate  creed,  and  is  ready  to  call  him 
deserter  and  traitor.  Between  the  two  the  apologist  is  apt 
to  fare  ill,  and  he  may  well  be  tempted  to  shun  a  task  which 
is  more  likely  to  expose  him  to  misunderstanding  than  to 
earn  thanks  and  honour.  But  he  must  take  his  risk,  and 
be  satisfied  if  his  efforts  prove  useful  to  those  for  whose 
benefit  they  are  undertaken,  and  help  some  honest  doubters 
to  sincere  stable  faith. 

The  end  proposed  may  seem  to  restrict  within  very 
narrow  limits  the  sphere  of  the  apologist's  influence. 
**  Honest  doubters,"  sincere  inquirers,  earnest  seekers  after 
God  and  truth,  groping  their  way  amid  the  darkness  of 
involuntary  misapprehensions,  how  few  they  are  at  any 
time !  How  much  more  numerous  the  contented  slaves 
of  opinion,  Christian  or  non- Christian,  according  to  the 
accidents  of  birth  and  education !  It  may  be  so,  yet,  even 
if  few,  men  of  the  class  contemplated  are  supremely  worth 
caring  for.  One  such  straying  sheep  is  more  worth  the 
shepherd's  care  than  ninety -and -nine  who  have  never 
known  what  it  is  to  doubt.  But  they  are  not  so  few  as  on 
first  impressions  we  may  think,  especially  if  we  do  not 
form  too  ideal  a  conception  of  the  state,  but  include  in  the 
class  all  in  whom  there  is  a  sincere  sympathy  with  the 
good,  an  implicit  rudimentary  faith  in  God,  a  spiritual 
receptivity  that  would  readily  respond  to  such  teaching  as 
that  of  Christ,  a  vague,  restless  longing  for  light  on  the 
dark  problems  of  life,  that  under  proper  guidance  might 
ripen  into  Christian  discipleship.  This  widened  definition 
takes  us  outside  the  Church,  and  even  outside  Christendom, 
and  includes  among  our  possible  readers  many  belonging  to 
the  Churchless  mass  of  men  and  women  living  in  nominally 
Christian   countries,  and   who  shall  say   how   many  even 


INTRODUCTION.  39 

among  the  vast  millions  whom  we,  with  a  pity  tinged  with 
a  little  self-righteousness,  call  "  the  heathen  "  ?  The  com- 
mon people  of  Judaea  heard  Jesus  gladly.  How  many  of 
the  same  class  who  are  never  seen  in  our  churches  would 
gladly  hear  Him  now,  if  His  own  true  voice  could  only 
reach  their  ear  1  And  are  there  not  many  in  heathen  lands 
who  are  nearer  God,  and  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  than  are  not  a  few  of  the  "  Christians  " 
who  find  their  way  into  India,  China,  and  other  parts  of  the 
non-Christian  world  on  commercial,  political,  scientific,  or 
other  errands  ?  As  he  ponders  such  questions,  the  apologist 
begins  to  feel  that  he  may  be  addressing  himself  to  a  very 
large  constituency,  including,  besides  professional  students 
of  ;heology  fresh  from  the  study  of  philosophy,  and  no 
longer  resting  peacefully  in  the  faith  of  their  childhood, 
youag  men  of  all  ranks  and  professions  keenly  sensitive  to 
the  higher  influences  of  their  time,  honest,  thoughtful 
artisms,  who  amid  their  daily  toil  remember  that  life  is 
more  than  meat,  good  pagans  who  show  themselves  to 
be  implicit  Christians  by  deeds  of  kindness  to  Christ's 
bretlren  the  poor  and  needy.* 

Oi  the  subject  of  method  great  diversity  of  opinion  and 
practice  has  prevailed  among  apologetic  writers.  In  Eng- 
land il  has  been  customary,  following  the  traditions  of  the 
deistic  controversy,  to  distribute  the  topics  belonging  to 
apolo^tics  under  the  two  heads  of  the  Evidences  of  Natural 
Religion  and  the  Evidences  of  Revealed  Religion,  the  former 
including  all  that  can  be  known  from  the  works  of  nature 
and  tie  spiritual  constitution  of  man,  the  latter  all  that 
tends  :o  confirm  the  supernatural  teaching  concerning  God 
contaiaed  in  the  Scriptures.  The  evidences  of  revealed 
religioi  have  been  subdivided  into  the  **  external "  and  the 
**  internal,"  the  one  term,  in  its  simplest  acceptation,  signi- 
fying the  evidence  for  Christianity  derivable  from  sources 

*  I  CO  not  remember  to  have  read  anything  more  to  my  taste  on  the  proper 
aim  aid  temper  of  the  apologist  than  Harrison's  ProUema  of  ChristioMitif 
and  Scptiwm.    Longmans  k  Co.,  1891. 


40  APOLOQETIGS, 

outside  Scripture,  ^g,  from  heathen  writers;  tiie  other 
denoting  the  evidence  derivable  from  the  Bible  itself,  such 
as  the  consistency  of  its  teaching,  the  loftiness  of  its 
morality,  the  character  of  Christ.  Neither  the  general 
division  nor  the  special  subdivision  supplies  a  satisfactory 
scheme  of  distribution.  Not  the  former,  because  by  isolating 
the  topics  falling  under  the  head  of  natural  theology  for 
independent  discussion,  it  deprives  them  of  the  interest 
arising  out  of  a  conscious  connection  with  the  burning 
questions  of  Christianity.  Whatever  we  discuss,  whether 
it  be  the  being  of  God,  or  the  reality  of  a  righteous 
benignant  Providence,  or  the  certainty  of  a  life  to  come,  it 
ought  to  be  felt  that  the  discussion  is  carried  on  in  the 
interest  of  the  Christian  faith.  The  traditional  subdivision 
of  the  Christian  evidences  is  still  less  satisfactory.  The 
distinction  between  "  external "  and  "  internal "  is  neither 
clear  in  itself  nor  susceptible  of  consistent  application,  as  is 
frankly  acknowledged  by  Dr.  Chalmers  in  his  treatise  on 
the  Evidences  of  the  Christian  B&oelation}  and  as  any  one 
can  ascertain  for  himself  by  subjecting  his  own  mind  and 
memory  to  a  process  of  interrogation  on  the  subject.  He 
will  find  that  he  is  liable  to  forget  which  are  the  evidences 
usually  reckoned  external  and  which  the  internal,  and  that 
he  is  not  quite  sure  to  which  of  the  two  categories  any 
particular  piece  of  evidence,  say  that  from  miracles,  bebngs ; 
or,  in  case  he  remembers  how  it  is  classed  in  the  Dooks, 
able  at  once  to  give  a  reason  for  the  classification.  The 
wise  course  to  be  pursued  by  any  one  who  has  occasion  to 
deal  with  the  subject  is  to  discard  the  confused  and  mis- 
leading distinction  altogether,  and  to  look  out  for  some 
other  principle  of  classification. 

In  Germany  writers  on  apologetics  base  their  method  on 
a  scientific  principle,  instead  of  on  a  purely  outward, 
arbitrary,  and  formal  arrangement,  as  has  been  custoaiary 
in  England.  As  yet,  however,  no  proposed  method  has 
secured  general  concurrence,  each  writer  adopting  a  plin  of 
1  Vol.  u.  pp.  8-10. 


INTRODUCTION.  41 

his  own  for  which  he  claims  peculiar  advantages.  Baum* 
stark  builds  on  an  anthropological  foundation.  Taking 
man,  his  nature  and  his  needs,  for  his  starting-point,  he 
seeks  to  show  that  Christianity  corresponds  perfectly  to  the 
religious  wants  of  humanity,  confirming  the  positive  argu- 
ment by  a  negative  one  directed  to  prove  that  no  other 
religion  satisfies  these  wants.  He  claims  for  his  plan  that 
it  admits  of  the  whole  apologetic  material  being  easily 
grouped  around  the  psychological  demonstration,  and,  further, 
that  it  transfers  the  argument  to  a  field  on  which  we 
engage  on  advantageous  terms  in  direct  conflict  with  the 
chief  modern  foes  of  Christianity — pantheism  and  materi- 
alism. This  method  is,  to  say  the  least,  very  legitimate. 
It  conducts  us  into  the  heart  of  the  subject,  and  gives  greatest 
prominence  to  those  aspects  of  it  which  at  the  present  time 
are  of  pressing  importance. 

With  Delitzsch  the  centre  is  not  man,  but  the  idea  or 
essence  of  Christianity  itself.  His  method  is,  first  of  all, 
to  determine  what  Christianity  is,  then  to  analyse  the 
idea  into  its  elements,  and  thereafter  to  show  in  detail 
that  these  are,  one  and  all,  in  harmony  with  the  moral 
and  religious  consciousness  of  man,  and  contain  at  once 
the  refutation  and  the  truth  of  all  opposing  philosophies 
and  religions.  The  result  of  the  argument  is  to  exhibit  the 
idea  of  Christianity  as  being  the  truth  of  theism  as  opposed 
to  polytheism  and  pantheism,  the  truth  of  pantheism  as 
opposed  to  deism,  and  the  truth  of  polytheism  as  opposed 
to  simple  theism.  It  is  a  fine  conception,  though,  in  the 
working  out  of  it,  the  author  gives  the  impression  of  a  man 
so  fully  persuaded  in  his  own  mind,  and  so  utterly  at  rest 
in  his  conviction  of  the  truth  of  Christianity,  as  to  be 
disinclined  to  enter  into  much  detail  in  dealing  with  the 
position  of  opponents. 

The  method  of  Ebrard  is  somewhat  similar  to  that  of 
Delitzsch.  Having  briefly  stated  the  presuppositions  of 
Christianity  as  the  religion  of  redemption, — viz.  the  exist- 
ence of  a  living  God,  an  everlasting  moral  law,  the  freedom 


42  APOLOGETICS. 

and  responsibility  of  the  human  will,  the  existence  in  man 
of  a  state  of  opposition  to  the  law,  and  the  impossibility  of 
self-redemption, — he  asks  and  answers  at  length  the  ques- 
tion, Whether  these  are  or  are  not  in  harmony  with  the 
facts  of  nature  and  of  human  consciousness  ?  He  then 
proceeds  to  the  negative  part  of  his  task,  which  undertakes 
the  refutation  of  anti-Christian  systems,  and  more  especially 
those  of  materialism  and  pantheism.  Finally,  he  considers 
Christianity  comparatively  as  one  of  the  religions  of  the 
world,  with  a  view  to  establish  its  claim  to  be  the  one  true 
divinely-given  religion,  the  perfect  realisation  of  the  religious 
ideal 

These  samples  may  suffice  to  illustrate  the  variety  in 
plan  with  which  it  is  possible  to  construct  an  apologetic 
system  aspiring  to  scientific  form  and  completeness.*  It  is 
now  time  to  explain  the  course  to  be  pursued  in  the  present 
less  ambitious  attempt. 

The  aim  naturally  determines  the  method.  The  aim  is 
to  secure  for  Christianity  a  fair  hearing  with  conscious  or 
implicit  believers  whose  faith  is  stifled  or  weakened  by 
anti-Christian  prejudices  of  varied  nature  and  origin.  The 
purpose  of  apologetic,  as  thus  conceived,  is  not  so  much 
scientific  as  practical.  It  is  not  designed  to  give  theoretical 
instruction  in  a  branch  of  theological  knowledge,  but  rather 
to  serve  the  purpose  of  a  moral  discipline,  by  dispossessing 
ingenuous  truth-loving  minds  of  opinions  which  tend  to 
make  faith  difficult,  presenting  Christianity  under  aspects 
which  they  had  not  previously  contemplated,  suggesting 
explanations  of  difficulties  which  they  had  not  before 
thought  of,  and  so  making  it  possible  for  them  to  be 
Christians  with  their  whole  mind  and  heart. 

For   the   accomplishment    of   this  end,  the  first   step 

*  Among  writers  who  have  treated  the  subject  firom  still  different  pointi 
of  view  may  be  mentioned :  Fr.  H.  R.  Frank,  System  der  Chriatlichen 
Oewissheit,  1870.  His  starting-point  is  the  Ohristian  conscioosneas. 
Kaftan,  Die  Wahrheit  der  Christlichen  Religion,  1888.  His  guiding 
thought  is  the  Christian  idea  of  the  kingdom  of  God  u  the  highest  good. 


IMTRODUOTIOW.  48 

obviously  is  to  make  sure  that  men  know  what  Chris- 
tianity really  is.  Much  of  the  weak,  half-hearted  attach- 
ment to  the  Christian  faith  which  prevails  arises  from  lack 
of  such  knowledge.  And  if  we  wish  to  dispel  this  baleful 
ignorance,  we  must  not  begin  with  any  ready-made  idea  of 
the  Christian  religion  extracted  from  the  creeds  or  current 
in  the  Churches,  but,  remembering  that  much  prejudice 
against  both  creeds  and  Churches  exists  in  many  minds 
which  we  should  desire  to  influence,  we  must  remount  to 
the  fountainhead,  and  learn  the  nature  of  our  faith  from 
the  records  of  Christ's  life  and  teaching  contained  in  the 
Gospels.  Nay,  to  avoid  outrunning  the  sympathies  of 
honest  doubt  by  seeming  to  forestall  the  solution  of  any 
grave  apologetic  problems,  we  must  impose  on  ourselves  a 
still  further  restriction,  and  gather  our  information  regarding 
nascent  Christianity,  in  the  first  place,  from  the  first  three 
Gospels,  leaving  the  fourth  on  one  side  to  be  dealt  with  at 
a  subsequent  stage.  An  honest  endeavour  to  extract  from 
these  Gospels  a  simple  account  of  what  Jesus  was  and 
taught  might,  without  further  trouble,  win  to  hearty  faith 
many  whose  alienation  has  its  root  in  social  grievances 
rather  than  in  science  or  philosophy  or  biblical  criticism. 

But  all  doubt  cannot  be  so  easily  healed.  There  are 
prejudices  against  Christianity  to  be  dealt  with  arising  out 
of  philosophy,  science,  history,  criticism.  In  view  of  these, 
we  must  consider  not  merely  what  are  the  Christian  facts, 
but  what  are  the  presuppositions  of  Christianity.  There 
are  two  classes  of  presuppositions  to  be  considered — the 
speculative  or  philosophical  and  the  historical.  As  to  the 
former,  Christianity  is  not  a  philosophy,  but  it  implies 
nevertheless,  as  indeed  does  every  religion,  certain  charac- 
teristic ways  of  regarding  God,  man,  and  the  world,  and 
their  relations ;  in  other  words,  a  certain  theory  of  the 
universe.  It  will  be  of  service  to  ascertam  what  the 
Christian  theory  of  the  universe  is,  and,  having  done 
that,  to  state  and  compare  with  it  other  more  or  less 
antagonistic  theories,  so  that  it  may  appear  which  of  them, 


44  APOLOGETICa 

in  view  of  all  interests,  is  most  worthy  to  be  entertained. 
The  consideration  of  this  speculative  class  of  questions  will 
occupy  our  attention  in  the  first  book  of  this  work.  On 
a  narrow  view  of  the  function  of  Christian  apologetic,  it 
may  seem  as  if  such  abstruse  discussions  might  be  omitted. 
Why  cannot  we  take  for  granted  the  being  of  God,  for 
example,  and  go  on  at  once  to  consider  the  positive  evi- 
dences of  the  Christian  faith  ?  But  taking  for  granted 
the  being  of  God  will  not  do  much  for  us.  The  great 
matter  is  not  that  God  is,  but  what  He  is.  All  men,  in 
one  fashion  or  another,  admit  the  existence  of  somewhat 
that  may  be  called  God.  Where  they  differ  widely  is  in 
their  conceptions  of  God's  nature  and  character.  And 
what  the  Christian  apologist  is  concerned  to  show  is  not 
that  a  God  of  some  sort  exists,  but  that  the  Christian 
idea  of  God  is  worthier  to  be  received  than  that  of  the 
pantheist  or  the  deist,  or  of  any  rival  theory  of  the  uni- 
verse. This  task  he  cannot  shirk  if  he  would  thoroughly 
perform  the  duty  he  has  undertaken,  that  of  establishing 
doubters  in  the  Christian  faith.  For  it  cannot  be  ques- 
tioned that  what  keeps  many  in  a  semi-sceptical  state  of 
mind  is  that  they  consciously  or  unconsciously  cherish  a 
thought  of  God  belonging  to  an  entirely  different  theory 
of  the  universe  from  that  which  is  in  harmony  with 
Christian  beliet 

Christianity  has  also  its  historical  presuppositions. 
Jesus  belonged  to  a  peculiar  people,  which  had  a  singular 
history,  possessed  a  remarkable  literature,  and  cherished 
extraordinary  ideas  of  its  destiny.  In  its  literature  that 
people  is  called  an  elect  race,  implying  an  exceptional 
relation  to  God,  and  a  position  of  distinction  as  compared 
with  other  peoples.  It  will  be  of  importance  to  form  just 
conceptions  of  the  nature  of  Israel's  privilege,  what  it 
involved  with  regard  to  herself,  and  also  what  it  signified 
in  regard  to  the  outside  nations,  and  to  inquire  how  far 
the  religious  history  of  the  ancient  world  justifies  Israel's 
claim  to  be  a  people  near  to  God  in  knowledge  and  in  life. 


INTRODDCTION.  45 

In  the  course  of  this  study  we  may  learn  to  recognise  as  a 
fact  the  superiority  of  Israel,  as  in  possession  of  a  divi/ie 
revelation,  while  doing  full  justice  to  all  that  is  good  in 
heathenism.  We  may  also  learn,  independently  of  all 
doubtful  questions  of  criticism,  to  set  a  high  value  on  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures,  in  which  Israel's  history  is  related,  her 
religion  unfolded,  her  sin  exposed,  and  her  undying  hope 
proclaimed.  These  topics  will  occupy  us  in  a  second  book, 
having  for  its  general  heading, "  The  Historical  Preparation 
for  Christianity." 

A  third  book  will  treat  of  Christianity  itself,  or  the 
Christian  origins,  including  such  topics  as  these :  Jesus  in 
Himself,  and  as  the  Christ ;  His  work ;  His  resurrection ; 
the  faith  of  the  early  Church  concerning  Him ;  Paul  as  a 
factor  in  the  nascent  religion ;  primitive  Christianity ;  the 
historic  value  of  the  evangelic  documents.  The  considera- 
tion of  these  weighty  themes  will  help  us  to  appreciate  the 
claim  of  Christianity  to  be  the  consummation  of  all  that 
was  best  in  Old  Testament  piety,  and  the  absolute  religion, 
•ad  of  (Christ  to  be  the  Light  of  the  world. 


BOOK  L 

THEOEIES  OF  THE  UNIVERSE,  CHRISTIAN  AND 
ANTI-CHRIOTIAN. 


CHAPTER  L 

THE  CHRISTIAN  FACTS. 

Ltteratube, — The  Gospels  of  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke 

In  making  an  attempt  in  the  present  chapter  to  state  the 
Christian  facts,  it  may  be  well,  in  order  to  prevent  mis- 
understanding, to  begin  by  explaining  that  by  the  expression 
is  not  meant  all  that  a  Christian  man  believes  to  be  true 
concerning  the  person,  life,  and  teaching  of  Jesus,  but  only 
the  things  related  in  the  Synoptical  Gospels  on  these  topics 
which  possess  such  a  high  degree  of  probability  that  they 
may  be  provisionally  accepted  as  facts,  even  by  those  who 
scan  the  evangelic  records  with  a  critical  eye.  The  task 
now  on  hand  is  beset  with  difficulty,  arising  from  the  cir- 
cumstance that  these  records  cannot,  without  proof,  be 
assumed  to  contain  only  pure  objective  history,  but  may  at 
least  plausibly  be  regarded  as  history  coloured  more  or  less 
by  the  faith  of  the  narrators.  How  much  or  how  little 
solid  fact  any  one  finds  in  them  depends  partly  on  the 
philosophical  bias  which  he  brings  to  the  examination, 
partly  on  the  extent  to  which,  on  grounds  of  historical 
criticism,  he  thinks  he  can  trace  the  colouring  influence  of 
faith.     The  estimates  formed  of  the  amount  of  historical 

«6 


THB  CHAISTIAN   FACTS.  4tl 

matter  in  the  Gospels  are,  accordingly,  very  diverse.  Some 
reduce  the  kernel  of  hard  fact  to  a  meagre  minimum :  the 
beautiful  moral  teaching  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  or 
a  new  method  and  secret  for  attaining  the  reward  of 
righteousness — the  method  of  inwardness,  the  secret  of 
self-deniaL*  Some  even  go  the  length  of  doubting  whether 
anything  whatever  can  be  definitely  ascertained  concerning 
Jesus ;  whether  "  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount "  was  ever 
preached,  and  whether  "the  Lord's  Prayer"  was  ever 
prayed  by  Him.'  Such  style  themselves,  with  reference 
to  the  history  of  Christ,  agnostics,  men  who  do  not  know, 
and  who  maintain  that  it  is  impossible  to  know.  The 
imposing  authority  of  great  names  that  could  be  cited  in 
support  of  such  sceptical  views  might  well  scare  one  from 
attempting  to  determine  the  outlines  of  the  Christianity  of 
Christ  Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  discouragement  we  must  try. 
We  may  find  a  good  clue,  to  begin  with,  as  to  what  was 
central  in  the  thought  and  religion  of  Jesus,  in  the  apolo- 
getic elements  contained  among  His  recorded  sayings. 
What  was  He  above  all  things  obliged  to  apologise  for  ? 
It  was,  as  we  have  already  learned.  His  love  to  the  outcast 
sinful,  the  "  publicans  and  sinners "  of  Jewish  society. 
That  love,  then,  we  may  take  to  be  the  first  and  funda- 
mental Christian  fact.  It  is  a  very  instructive  fact.  It 
shows  us  for  one  thing  that  Christ  is  not  to  be  thought  of 
primarily  and  principally  as  a  teacher  coming  with  some 
wonderful  new  doctrines,  moral  or  religious,  revealing  to  the 
initiated  some  unheard  of  method  and  secret  for  the  attain- 
ment of  felicity.  This  needs  to  be  said  and  to  be  reiterated ; 
for  there  is  an  inveterate  tendency  among  believers  and 
unbelievers  alike  to  assume  that  revelation  must  consist 
in  the  communication  of  instruction,  and  that  the  founder 
of  a  religion  must  before  all  things  be  a  great  original 
teacher.*     And,  beyond  doubt,  Jesus  was  such  a  teacher ; 

•  So  the  late  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  in  Literature  and  Dogma. 

•  80  Mr.  Huxley  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  April  1889,  p.  487. 

•  On  this  vide  my  Chief  End  of  Bevelation,  chap.  L 


4:b  APOLOGETICS. 

but  the  thing  to  be  insisted  on  is  that,  great  though  He 
was  as  a  teacher,  He  was  still  greater  in  His  love.  His 
love  was  the  great  novelty,  the  primary  revelation  He 
had  to  make — a  revelation  made,  as  all  God's  greatest 
revelations  have  been  made,  by  deeds  rather  than  by 
words.  But  by  words  likewise.  For  no  recorded  word 
of  Jesus  is  more  characteristic,  more  credibly  authentic, 
and  more  significant  as  an  index  of  His  own  con- 
ception of  His  mission,  than  this :  "  The  Son  of  man  is 
come  to  save  that  which  was  lost,"  with  which  may  be 
associated  that  other  parabolic  saying:  "They  that  be 
whole  need  not  a  physician,  but  they  that  are  sick." 
Thereby  He  intimated  that  His  proper  vocation  was  that 
of  a  Saviour  or  Healer  of  spiritual  disease,  and  suggested 
the  thought  that  Christianity  is  the  religion  of  redemption, 
a  religion  which  announces  and  applies  a  new  divine  power 
of  love  to  cure  moral  evil  That  power  He  splendidly 
exemplified  in  His  own  ministry,  effecting  marvellous 
spiritual  recoveries  among  the  depraved  by  a  sympathy 
which  no  moral  vileness  could  repel,  drawing  the  sinful  to 
Him  in  perfect  confidence  of  welcome,  and  making  credible 
the  existence  of  similar  love  in  the  heart  of  Grod, 

Jesus  healed  men's  bodies  as  well  as  their  souls.  The 
same  sympathy  which  made  Him  pity  them  in  their  sin, 
caused  Him  also  to  bear  on  His  heart  the  burden  of  their 
sicknesses.  Some  of  the  best  authenticated  narratives  in 
the  Gospels  are  accounts  of  cures  wrought  instantaneously 
on  the  bodies  of  sick  persona  The  stories  are  found  in 
all  the  three  first  Gospels,  and  may  be  regarded  as  belong- 
ing to  the  original  stock  of  apostolic  tradition.*  They 
are  all  very  marvellous  ;  some,  if  not  all,  seem  positively 
miraculous,  not  explicable  otherwise  than  by  the  assump- 
tion that  Jesus  had  at  His  command  a  supernatural  divine 
power.  That  one  so  exceptionally  humane  should  desire, 
if  possible,  to  remove  all  evU,  physical  as  well  as  moral, 

'  Vide  my  Miraculotu  MemetU  i»  the  Gospels,  cbmp.  iT. ;  alM  Book  III, 
ohap.  iv.  of  this  work. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  FACTS.  49 

was  perfectly  natural ;  that  He  was  able  by  a  word  to  heal 
a  hfer  seems  to  show  that  in  some  preternatural  manner 
"  God  was  with  Him."  * 

Apart  from  their  miraculous  aspect,  these  works  of 
healing  possess  permanent  significance  as  showing  the 
comprehensiveness  of  Christ's  conception  of  salvation. 
Nothing  lay  out  of  His  way  which  in  any  respect  con- 
cerned the  wellbeing  of  man.  In  His  healing  ministry 
He  was  the  pioneer  of  Christian  philanthropy,  and  lent 
the  sanction  of  His  example  to  all  movements  which  aim 
at  social  amelioration. 

Though  Jesus  was  not  a  philosopher  or  mere  ethical 
teacher,  yet  He  did  teach,  and  in  a  most  characteristic 
style.  What  a  religious  teacher  has  to  say  concerning 
God  and  man  is  always  important  and  worth  noting. 
Now  Christ's  doctrine  of  God  was  not  elaborate.  It  was 
remarked  of  Him  by  shrewd  observers  among  the  common 
people  of  Judaea  that  He  taught  "not  as  the  scribes," 
which  was  as  if  we  should  say  now  of  any  new  religious 
teacher  arising  among  us,  "  He  teaches  not  as  a  professional 
theologian."  Jesus  taught  His  doctrine  of  God  by  a 
single  word.  He  always  called  God  "Father,"  and  that 
in  connections  which  gave  His  thought  about  God  a  very 
new  and  startling  aspect,  offensive  to  those  who  were 
reputedly  holy  and  righteous  called  "Pharisees,"  very 
welcome  to  all  others,  that  is  to  the  great  masa  of  the 
Jewish  people.  The  name  as  He  used  it  implied  that 
God  had  paternal  goodwill  to  the  unthankful  and  evil,  to 
the  immoral  and  irreligious,  to  the  outcasts ;  that  He  was 
the  God  and  Father  of  the  mob,  of  the  publicans  and 
sinners,  of  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel,  not  merely 
of  Pharisees,  scribes,  and  priests.  It  was  only  an  extension 
of  Christ's  thought  about  God  when  Paul  said  that  God 
was  not  the  God  of  the  Jews  only,  but  also  of  the  Gentiles ; 
and  we  simply  apply  His  grand  inspiring  doctrine  to  our 
modem  circumstances  when  we  say  God  is  the  God  and 
*  Vide  Miraculov*  Element  in  the  OospeU,  dh^  t. 
D 


50  APOLOGETICS. 

Father  of  the  churchless,  of  the  proletariat,  of  the  denizens 
of  the  lanes  and  slums  of  our  great  cities,  of  society's  out- 
casts and  noa-elect.  It  was  a  new  idea  of  God,  whose 
import  is  not  yet  fully  realised,  a  revelation  full  of  hope 
for  humanity. 

Christ's  idea  of  man  was  kindred  to  His  idea  of  God. 
It  was  as  remote  as  possible  from  that  of  Celsus,  whose 
feeling  towards  mankind  was  one  of  cynical  contempt. 
Jesus  thought  a  man  a  being  of  infinite  value,  in  view  of 
his  spiritual  endowments  and  possibilities.  He  said  with 
an  emphasis  previously  unknown,  a  man  is  a  man,  yea  a 
son  of  God.  He  said  this  not  with  reference  to  picked 
samples — holy,  wise,  learned  men ;  on  the  contrary,  of  the 
holiness,  wisdom,  and  learning  in  vogue  He  seemed  to  have 
a  very  poor  opinion ;  still  less  with  reference  to  men  that 
were  rich,  for  of  mere  material  wealth  He  always  spoke 
with  a  compassionate  disdain.  He  affirmed  the  indefeasible 
worth  of  human  nature  with  reference  to  the  poor,  the 
ignorant,  the  foolish,  the  immoral,  the  irreligious ;  to  the 
amazement  and  disgust  of  those  belonging  to  the  upper 
select  classes  of  society.  He  taught  this  revolutionary 
doctrine  not  as  a  Eabbi  delivering  theoretical  lectures 
in  the  school  to  his  disciples,  but  chiefly  by  the  far 
harder  and  more  testing  method  of  action ;  freely  associ- 
ating with  people  low  down  in  the  social  scale,  whose 
worth  to  God  and  men,  in  spite  of  degradation.  He  per- 
sistently proclaimed.  The  reality  and  extent  of  the  degrada- 
tion He  was  well  aware  of,  and  often  described  by  the 
pathetic  term  "  lost."  He  knew  that  His  outcast  friends 
much  needed  saving,  but  He  believed,  in  defiance  of  all 
appearances  and  assertions  to  the  contrary,  that  they  were 
capable  of  being  saved  and  worth  saving ;  that,  though  lost, 
they  were  still  lost  sons.  This  genial,  hopeful,  optimistic 
humanitarianism  of  Jesus  was  an  astonishment  and  scandal 
to  His  contemporaries.  It  is  not  more  than  half  sym- 
pathised with  yet,  even  by  Christendom.  Were  all  that 
bear  the  Christian  name  earnestly  of  Christ's  mind,  how 


THB  CHRISTIAN    FACTS.  61 

many  degraded  ones  would  be  raised,  and,  what  is  more 
important,  how  many  would  be  kept  from  ever  sinking 
down !  What  countless  possible  victims  of  lust  and  greed 
would  be  rescued  from  wrong  by  the  spirit  of  humanity 
expelling  these  evil  demons  from  the  heart!  So,  not 
otherwise,  will  God's  kingdom  come. 

But  it  is  not  merely  through  care  for  the  good  of  others 
that  Christ's  doctrine  of  man  works  for  the  establishment 
of  the  divine  moral  order.  It  tends  thereto  with  equal 
power  through  the  stimulus  it  brings  to  bear  on  the  indi- 
vidual conscience  to  realise  the  ideal  of  sonship.  For  the 
doctrine  that  man  is  the  son  of  God  has  two  sides — the  one 
the  side  of  privilege,  the  other  that  of  duty.  It  is  a  great 
privilege  to  be  able  to  call  God  our  Father.  But  the  grace 
in  which  we  stand  imposes  high  obligations.  God's  sons 
must  be  God-like.  They  must  realise  in  their  character  the 
Christian  ethical  ideal  It  is  a  very  high,  exacting  ideal  as 
set  forth,  e.g.,  in  the  Beatitudes,  implying  a  passion  for  the 
right,  and  a  willingness  even  to  suffer  for  righteousness' 
sake.  That  ideal,  not  less  than  God's  gracious  love  to  all, 
is  a  part  of  Christ's  gospel  for  the  million.  And  though 
it  seems  too  high  for  all  but  the  few  elect  ones,  the 
aristocracy  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  it  ought  to  be  pro- 
claimed in  all  its  Alpine  elevation  in  the  hearing  of  aU. 
For  its  elevation  is  its  charm.  Christ's  moral  ideal  com- 
mands universal  respect,  and  to  lower  its  claims  to  adapt 
it  to  average  capacity,  a  policy  too  often  pursued,  is  only 
to  expose  Christianity  to  contempt. 

The  foregoing  facts  suggest  the  thought  that  Jesus  was 
a  very  remarkable  person,  exceptional,  unique  in  goodness 
and  wisdom,  a  moral  phenomenon  difficult  to  account  for 
in  any  age  and  country,  and  especially  in  such  an  arid 
spiritual  wilderness  as  Judaea  was  at  the  beginning  of  our 
era.  Men  of  all  shades  of  opinion  acquainted  with  His 
history  are  agreed  in  this.  All  subscribe  to  this  creed  at 
least,  that  Jesus  was  an  extraordinary  man,  a  religious 
genina.      The  Church  believes  Him   to  be  God     If  this 


62  APOLOGETICS. 

solemn  aflfirmation  be  true,  then  the  story  recorded  in  the 
Gospels  presents  to  our  view  this  great  spectacle:  God 
entering  into  the  world  in  human  form  and  under  the 
limited  conditions  of  humanity,  as  a  redemptive  force,  to 
battle  with  the  moral  evil  that  afflicts  mankind.  If  we 
form  the  highest  idea  possible  of  divine  love  and  grace, 
the  amazing  thing  will  not  appear  utterly  incredible.  On 
the  physical  and  metaphysical  side  the  doctrine  may  seem 
to  present  a  difficulty  bordering  on  impossibility,  but  on  the 
moral  side  it  is  worthy  of  all  acceptation.  The  world  has 
a  religious  interest  in  the  faith  that  Jesus  is  divine ;  for 
what  can  be  more  welcome  than  the  idea  that  God  is  like 
Him,  loves  men  as  He  loved  them — nay,  is  Himself  per- 
sonally present  and  active  in  that  Good  Friend  of  publicans 
and  sinners  ? 

There  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  Jesus  was  conscious 
of  being  in  some  sense  an  exceptional  person.  He  had  a 
peculiar  way  of  designating  Himself.  He  called  Himself 
sometimes  the  Son  of  God,  but  oftenest  the  Son  of  man. 
What  the  precise  import  of  these  names  may  be  is  a  sub- 
ject for  careful  inquiry.  But  they  at  once  suggest  thoughts 
of  a  notable  personage,  and  provoke  the  question.  Who  can 
this  be  ?  The  titles  are  in  harmony  with  what  He  who 
wore  them  taught  concerning  God  and  man.  "  Son  of  man," 
to  mention  the  more  familiar  and  less  mysterious  title  first, 
probably  expresses  sympathy  and  solidarity  with  mankind. 
It  is  the  embodiment  in  a  name  of  the  faith,  hope,  and  love 
of  Jesus  for  the  human  race.  The  other  title.  Son  of  God, 
expresses  the  consciousness  of  intimate  relations  to  God ; 
not  necessarily  exclusive,  possibly  common  to  Jesus  with 
other  men,  but  certainly  implying  affinity  of  nature  between 
God  and  man,  and  great  possibilities  of  loving  fellowship. 
It  is  in  that  view  the  correlate  of  the  name  "  Father " 
employed  by  Jesus  to  express  His  conception  of  the 
Divine  Being.  Tf  God  be  our  Father,  we  are,  of  course,  Hia 
sons.  In  one  recorded  saying  Jesus  seems  to  claim  for 
Himself  some    special    and    exceptional   privilege    in    the 


THE   CHRISTIAN   FACTS.  68 

matter  of  Sonship :  "  No  man  knoweth  the  Son,  but  the 
Father;  neither  knoweth  any  man  the  Father  save  the 
Son."  The  use  of  the  definite  article  before  Son  and  Father 
instead  of  the  pronoun  "  my,"  seems  to  express  an  absolute 
antithesis  and  suggest  a  unique  relation.*  But  this  need  not 
be  insisted  on  here.  It  is  enough  to  signalise  in  general 
Christ's  manner  of  self-designation  as  expressing  His  con- 
sciousness of  being  in  some  sense  an  exceptional  person, 
and  as,  in  that  view,  one  of  the  notable  Christian  facts. 

Two  other  features  in  Christ's  teaching  claim  attention 
here:  His  proclamation  of  the  advent  of  the  kingdom  of 
God,  and  His  allusions  to  the  Messianic  hope.  These  both 
imply  something  going  before,  and  are  suggestive  of  the 
historical  presuppositions  of  Christianity,  an  elect  race,  a 
sacred  literature,  and  the  expectation  ever  cherished  in 
Israel,  amid  present  trouble,  of  brighter  days  to  come.  The 
utterances  of  Jesus  on  these  topics  were  rooted  in  the  past 
history  of  His  people.  It  was  perfectly  natural  that  He 
as  a  Jew  should  speak  about  a  kingdom  of  God  and  a 
Christ  as  coming,  or  possibly,  if  there  were  apparently  good 
reasons  for  thinking  so,  as  come.  But  did  He  think  and 
call  Himself  the  Christ  ?  It  is  a  momentous  question,  on 
which  there  is  not,  as  yet,  entire  agreement  of  opinion. 
That  Jesus  might  have  His  Messianic  idea,  and,  in  common 
with  His  countrymen,  cherish  the  Messianic  hope,  and  even 
believe  in  Messiah's  speedy  advent,  no  one  denies ;  but  that 
He  actually  identified  Himself  with  the  Messiah,  or  com- 
placently allowed  His  disciples  to  make  the  identification, 
some  are  extremely  unwilling  to  admit  The  able  and 
eloquent  author  of  T!^  Seat  of  Authority  in  Religion  regards 
the  ascription  of  Messiahship  to  Jesus  as  the  earliest  of 
several    theories    concerning   His    person    formed    by   the 

^  In  The  Seat  0/ Authority  in  Religion,  p.  686,  Dr.  Martinean  representi  the 
use  of  th«  artiole  as  a  feature  due  to  the  influence  of  a  later  time,  "  when 
the  Logos  theory  had  need  to  distinguish  two  constituents  or  partieipanti 
in  the  Godhead."  He  traces  the  same  influence  of  a  later  theology  in  tbe 
saying,  "  Of  that  day  or  that  hour  knoweth  no  one^  not  om  the  uigdB  in 
heaven,  neithor  the  Son,  bat  the  Father,"  p.  690. 


54  AFOL0OBTI0& 

Primitive  Church,  and  finds  in  all  gospel  texts  that  impute 
to  Jesus  Himself  Messianic  pretensions  the  reflection  of 
this  later  faith.  Among  His  reasons  for  adopting  this 
view  is  a  regard  to  the  modesty  of  Jesus,  and  to  the  unity 
and  harmony  of  His  spiritual  nature.  Now  unquestionably 
these  are  to  be  respected  and  even  jealously  guarded ;  and 
if  the  Messianic  consciousness  ascribed  to  Jesus  really 
involved  an  "  inner  breach  of  character,"  it  would  have  to 
be  discarded  at  all  hazards.  But  let  us  see  how  the  case 
actually  stands.  What  does  "  Messiah  "  translated  into  our 
modern  European  dialect  mean  ?  It  signifies  the  bringer- 
in  of  the  summum  honwm,  the  realiser  of  all  religious  ideals, 
the  establisher  of  the  loving  fellowship  between  God  and 
man,  and  between  man  and  man,  for  which  the  Hebrew 
equivalent  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Now  is  this  not 
what  Jesus  actually  did  ?  He  introduced  the  religion  of 
the  spirit,  the  final,  ideal,  absolute  religion.  He  brought 
into  the  world  supremely  valuable  and  imperishable  boons : 
a  God  who  is  a  Father,  a  regenerated  human  brotherhood, 
a  love  that  had  in  it  purpose  and  power  to  redeem  from 
sin,  a  love  that  could  die,  and  that  expected  to  die  a 
"  ransom  "  for  the  million.  To  say  that  Jesus  thought  of 
Himself  as  Messiah  is  to  say  that  He  was  aware  what  He 
was  doing,  that  He  understood  His  endowments  and  the 
tasks  they  imposed  on  Him.  The  name  is  foreign  to  us, 
and  if  we  do  not  like  it  we  can  translate  it  into  our  own 
tongue.  The  thing  it  denotes  is  good,  and  we  owe  it  to 
Jesus.  Why  should  we  hesitate  to  say  that  He  knew  He 
was  bringing  to  the  world  that  good  ?  It  is  not  necessary 
to  think  of  that  knowledge  as  involving  pretension  and 
claim.  We  should  think  of  it  rather  as  involving  simply 
recognition  of  a  vocation  arising  out  of  endowment,  above 
all  out  of  the  unparalleled  wealth  of  human  sympathy 
with  which  the  heart  of  Jesus  was  filled.  Eecognition,  or 
better  still,  submission ;  for  the  hardships  and  sorrows  of 
the  Messianic  vocation  were  such  as  efifectually  excluded 
all    vain  ambitious  thoughts,   and  insured  that  the  Elect 


THE  CHRISTIAN   FACTS.  66 

One  in  entering  on  His  high  career  should  be  simply 
suffering  Himself  to  be  led  into  a  path  from  which  all 
egoistic  feelings  would  instinctively  shrink.*  But  be  this  as 
it  may,  Jesus  was  the  Christ,  if  He  did  not  call  Himself 
Christ.  He  did  Messiah's  work,  and  that  is  another  of  the 
essential  Christian  facts. 

Jesus  represented  the  kingdom  of  God,  whose  advent 
He  announced,  as  the  chief  good  and  the  chief  end  of  man, 
for  the  acquisition  of  which  one  should  be  ready  cheerfully 
to  part  with  all  other  possessions,  and  to  whose  sovereign 
claims  all  other  interests  should  be  subordinated.  He 
further  taught  that  that  kingdom  is  a  chief  end  for  God  as 
well  as  for  men.  He  strongly  and  repeatedly  asserted  the 
reality  of  a  paternal  providence  continually  working  for  the 
good  of  those  who  make  the  kingdom  of  God  their  chief 
end.  "  Seek  ye,"  He  said,  "  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  all 
these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you  ; "  *  "  The  very  hairs 
of  your  head  are  all  numbered ; "  •  "  Fear  not,  little  flock ; 
for  it  is  your  Father's  good  pleasure  to  give  you  the  king- 
dom." *  His  absolute  faith  in  the  fortunes  of  the  kingdom, 
and  in  God's  power  and  will  to  promote  its  interest  in  spite 
of  all  untoward  influences,  found  emphatic  expression  in 
reference  to  His  own  personal  concern  therein  in  the  words: 
"  All  things  are  delivered  unto  me  of  my  Father."  *  These 
simple,  pathetic  utterances  are  profoundly  significant 
They  implicitly  enunciate  Christ's  doctrine  of  God's  rela- 
tion to  the  world,  and  teach  in  effect  that  the  universe  has 
a  moral  end,  and  that  the  creation  is  an  instrument  in 
God's  hands  for  the  advancement  of  that  end — the  establish- 
ment of  His  kindgom  of  love. 

It  would  be  a  very  incomplete  account  of  the  Christian 
facts  which  omitted  mention  of  Christ's  conflict  with 
Pharisaism,  and  of  the  important  service  which  He  ren- 

*  On  this  vide  Tlie  Kingdom  of  God,  chap.  vL     Vide  also  on  the  whole 
question  of  Christ's  Messianic  claims.  Book  III.  chap.  ii.  of  this  work. 

«  Matt.  vi.  83.  «  Matt  x.  30. 

*  Luke  xii.  32.  »  Matt.  xi.  27  ;  Luke  x.  22. 


56  APOLOGETICS. 

dered  to  the  kingdom  as  a  critic  of  counterfeit  goodnesa 
The  function  of  moral  criticism  forms  a  regular  part  of  the 
prophetic  vocation,  but  Jesus  performed  the  unwelcome 
though  necessary  task  under  peculiarly  urgent  conditions. 
It  has  been  stated  that  Christianity  had  three  historical 
presuppositions — an  elect  race,  a  sacred  literature,  and  a 
Messianic  hope.^  But  in  reality  there  are  three  more  which 
it  is  equally  necessary  to  take  into  account,  if  we  would  fully 
understand  the  work  of  Jesus — an  election  mistaken  for  a 
monopoly  of  divine  favour,  a  literature  turned  by  the 
scribes  into  an  idol,  a  high  holy  hope  degraded  and 
vulgarised.  When  both  these  opposite  sets  of  conditions 
met,  the  hour  for  Messiah's  appearing  had  arrived.  He 
came  when  He  was  most  needed,  when  His  task  was 
supremely  difficult,  and  when  His  work  well  done  would 
have  its  maximum  of  influence.  In  such  circumstances 
realisation  of  the  ideal  inevitably  involved  conflict  with  its 
caricature.  Eighteousness  of  the  heart  had  to  be  put  in 
contrast  to  a  righteousness  of  conformity  to  external 
rales ;  the  Scriptures  had  to  be  rescued  from  the  scribes 
by  a  free  spiritual  interpretation ;  an  election  for  self  had 
to  be  set  aside  to  make  way  for  the  nobler  election  for  the 
benefit  of  others  originally  intended,  and  the  true  idea  of 
Messiah  had  to  be  differentiated  from  all  current  false 
conceptions.  All  this  Jesus  accomplished  in  an  effectual 
manner,  but  at  a  great  cost.  The  inevitable  collision  with 
Eabbinism  brought  Him  to  the  cross.  It  was  not  an 
unforeseen  catastrophe.  How  could  it  be  f  One  who  had 
such  perfect  insight  into  the  radical  viciousness  of  the  pre- 
vailing religion,  must  have  had  equal  insight  into  the 
wicked  hearts  of  those  who  practised  it,  and  known  what 
evil  spirits  of  envy,  malice,  and  hatred  harboured  there. 
The  predictions  of  his  violent  death  ascribed  to  Jesus  in 
the  Gospels  are  perfectly  credible.  So  also  are  the  inter- 
pretations He  is  reported  to  have  put  upon  it:  that  His 
Bu£fering  was  for  righteousness'  sake,  for  the  benefit  of  men, 

1  Fide  p.  68. 


THE   CHRISTIAN   FACTS.  67 

endured  in  a  spirit  of  self-sacrificing  love,  and  not  in  vain, 
being  destined,  though  meant  for  evil,  to  do  good  to  many. 

Christ's  exposure  of  Eabbinism,  important  in  many  ways 
as  a  feature  of  His  public  ministry,  is  specially  significant 
M  throwing  light  on  His  view  of  sin.  The  severity  of  His 
tone  in  speaking  of  the  Pharisees  and  their  ways,  is 
startling  when  contrasted  with  His  compassionate  gentle- 
ness towards  "  the  publicans  and  sinners."  The  difference 
is  not  to  be  explained  by  class  prejudices  or  sentimental 
partialities ;  it  must  be  held  to  indicate  a  deliberate  judg- 
ment as  to  the  relative  intensity  of  moral  evil,  as  manifested 
in  the  two  sections  of  society.  That  is  to  say,  in  the 
judgment  of  Jesus  the  vices  of  the  Pharisaic  character  must 
have  been  in  a  higher  degree  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  than  those  which  appeared  in  the  conduct 
of  the  lower  class.  That  this  was  actually  His  view  is 
evident  from  the  words  He  is  reported  to  have  spoken  to 
the  priests  and  elders  in  the  temple  shortly  before  Hia 
passion :  "  The  publicans  and  the  harlots  go  into  the  king- 
dom of  God  before  you."  *  The  grounds  of  this  comparative 
estimate  are  obvious.  The  sins  of  "  the  people  of  the  land  " 
were  acts  of  wayward  impulse,  and  had  their  seat  and 
source  in  the  flesh :  the  sins  of  the  Pharisees  were  vices 
of  the  spirit,  and  had  their  seat  and  source  in  the 
souL  In  the  one  class  the  power  of  evil  left  the  inner 
man  to  a  certain  extent  untouched,  the  moral  nature  not 
80  much  depraved  as  undeveloped.  The  sinner  was  still 
human,  still  had  in  him  possibilities  of  good  that  might 
be  appealed  ta  In  the  other  class,  on  the  contrary,  sin 
had  taken  possession  of  the  inner  man,  of  the  will,  the 
heart,  the  conscience,  the  whole  spiritual  nature.  Hence  it 
came  that  Jesus  was  so  much  more  hopeful  of  making 
acquisitions  for  the  kingdom  of  God  from  the  irreligious 
class,  than  from  those  who  were  religious  after  the  prevail- 
ing fashion.  In  the  one  case  all  that  was  necessary  was  to 
rofuse  the  man  against  the  brute,  to  appeal  to  laten^t  moral 
1  Matt.  xzi.  81. 


58  AFOLOGBTIC& 

energies,  and  utilise  them  for  worthy  end&     In  the  othet 

case  there  was  no  man  to  appeal  to;  the  man  had  heen 
perverted  into  a  kind  of  devil ;  all  that  of  right  belonged 
to  God,  and  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  the  spirit  of  the 
kingdom,  love,  had  been  taken  possession  of  by  an  antigod 
a  Satanic  usurper,  a  spirit  of  selfishness  disguising  its  hate- 
fulness  under  the  cloak  of  zeal  for  religion. 

In  the  light  of  this  judgment  of  Christ,  and  its  grounds, 
we  see  how  far  He  was  from  entertaining  the  view  as  to 
the  nature  and  origin  of  sin  held  by  the  Greeks  and  by 
deists,  that  it  has  its  seat  in  the  flesh,  and  makes  its 
appearance  in  human  conduct  because  man  is  a  being 
possessed  of  a  material  organisation  which  exercises  a  mis- 
leading, disturbing  influence  upon  his  rational  nature.  He 
rather  believed  that  sin  appears  only  in  mitigated  form 
when  it  springs  out  of  bodily  appetites  and  passions,  and 
that  it  is  seen  in  its  true  malignity  when  it  has  its  origin 
in  the  soul,  and  reveals  an  evil  will,  a  selfish  heart,  and  a 
perverted  conscience.  This  idea  of  sin  is  one  of  the  most 
characteristic  among  the  Christian  facta 


CHAPTER  IL 

THB  OHBISTIAN  THEOBT  OF  THB  UNIVEB8I. 

IlTERATUEE.  —  Schleiermacher,  Der  Christliche  Glatibe ; 
Bushnell,  Nature  and  the  Supernatural ;  Ebrard,  Apologetik  ; 
Delitzsch,  System  der  Ghristlichen  Apologetik;  Bruce,  The 
Chief  End  of  Revelation  ;  Matheson,  Can  the  Old  Faith  Live 
loith  the  New  f  Kaftan,  Das  Wesen  der  Ghristlichen  Religion^ 
1888 ;  Bornemann,  Unterricht  im  Christenthum,  1891 ; 
Aubrey  L  Moore,  Science  and  the  Faith,  1889. 

It  is  in  no  spirit  of  mere  philosophical  curiosity  that  the 
apologist  sets  himself  to  ascertain  the  speculative  presup- 
positions of  Christianity,  its  characteristic  ways  of  thinking 
concerning  God,  man,  and  the  world,  and  their  relations ; 


THB  GHRISTIiai  THEOBT  OF  THE  UKIYEBSK       69 

that  18  to  say,  its  distinctive  theory  of  the  universe.  He 
becomes  keenly  sensible  of  the  practical  importance  of  the 
inquiry  when  he  considers  how  desirable  it  is  that  all 
professed  Christians  should  be  able  to  maintain  perfect 
solidarity  in  thought  and  feeling  with  Christ,  to  sympathise 
unreservedly  with  His  manner  of  thinking  and  speaking  on 
all  subjects  pertaining  to  morals  and  religion.  Ability  to 
do  this  depends  largely  on  the  question.  How  far  our 
theoretical  conceptions  are  distinctively  Christian  ?  *  To 
decide  that  question,  we  must  first  know  what  the  Christian 
theory  is.  This  knowledge  we  now  attempt  to  extract 
from  the  Christian  facts  as  stated  in  the  previous  chapter. 

1.  From  Christ's  view  of  God  as  a  Father,  and  of  men 
as  His  sons,  we  can  infer  as  a  first  speculative  presupposi- 
tion of  Christianity  the  personality  of  God,  using  the  term 
in  essentially  the  same  sense  in  which  we  apply  it  to  men. 
The  relations  asserted  by  Jesus  to  exist  between  God  and 
men  imply  an  essential  likeness  between  the  divine  nature 
and  human  nature.  But  man  is  essentially  a  being  who 
reasons  and  wills  and  distinguishes  between  right  and 
wrong.  Therefore  God  also  has  reason,  will,  and  a 
moral  nature.  He  thinks  and  purposes,  and  right  and 
wrong  have  a  meaning  for  Him  not  less  than  for  us.  He 
is  a  rational,  ethical  personality,  self-conscious  and  self- 
determining. 

2.  Christ's  view  of  man  as  indefeasibly  a  son  of  God 
involves  that  in  the  Christian  theory  of  the  universe  man 
occupies  a  very  important  placa  Nothing  is  mope  charac- 
teristic of  any  theory  of  the  universe  than  the  place  it 
assigns  to  man.  Pantheism  and  materialism  degrade  him. 
Christianism,  on  the  othef  hand,  exalts  him.  It  commands 
all  men  to  respect  themselves  as  the  sons  of  God  ;  it  enjoins 
on  all  men  respect  for  each  other  as  brethren,  sons  of  the 
same  Father ;  on  the  highest  respect  for  the  lowest,  on  the 

*  Aubrey  L.  Moore  truly  remarks  that  "  it  u  on  the  ground  of  presup- 
positions that  the  battle  must  be  fought  out." — Science  and  the  Faith, 
p.  148 


60  APOLOGETICS. 

wisest  respect  for  the  most  foolish,  on  the  best  respect 
for  the  worst.  It  insists  on  the  meanest  reality  of  human 
society  being  regarded  in  the  light  of  the  lofty  ideal  of  man 
as  made  in  God's  image.  For  the  Christian  theory  man 
cannot  be  a  mere  child  of  time.  The  relation  in  which  he 
stands  to  God  compels  faith  in  immortality.  God  is  not 
the  Father  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living.  This  is  the  true 
Christian  foundation  for  belief  in  "  a  future  life " ;  not 
processes  of  reasoning  concerning  the  changes  of  state  living 
creatures  are  known  to  survive,  or  the  abstract  possibility 
of  living  agents  surviving  the  greatest  known  change — 
death — such  as  those  contained  in  the  opening  chapter  of 
Butler's  Analogy.  The  only  true  convincing  ground  of 
faith  in  eternal  life  is  the  dignity  of  human  nature,  and  the 
fact  that  a  man  at  his  worst  is  a  son  of  God. 

The  Christian,  then,  who  desires  to  be  in  harmony  with 
the  mind  of  Christ,  will  firmly  believe  in  the  immortality 
of  man.  And,  be  it  noted,  of  the  whole  man,  not  merely  of 
the  human  souL  Herein  lies  the  difference  between  the 
Christian  view  of  eternal  life  and  that  of  deism.  For 
deists,  as  for  pagan  philosophers  like  Socrates  and  Plato, 
the  hope  for  the  future  was  the  immortality  of  the  soul ;  in 
both  cases  for  the  same  reason,  because  the  vile  material 
body  was  the  seat  and  source  of  sin,  and  the  sooner  it  was 
got  rid  of  finally  and  for  ever,  the  better.  For  the 
Christian,  thinking  as  Christ  thought,  the  body  is  not 
inherently  vile,  or  the  sole  or  chief  source  of  moral  evil ; 
not  more  in  need  of  redemption  than  the  soul,  and  not  less 
capable  of  it. 

3,  The  relation  of  sin  to  the  body  is  one  aspect  of  a 
large  subject,  the  specifically  Christian  doctrine  of  sin.  It 
is  a  momentous  question,  What  is  the  view  of  moral  evil 
required  by  the  Christian  facts,  and  appropriate  to  a 
Christian  theory  of  the  universe?  The  following  state- 
ments may  serve  as  a  contribution  to  the  answer : — 

(1)  Sin  is  a  reality.  Every  one  must  firmly  hold  this 
who  regards  Christ  as  He  regarded  Himself,  as  a  moral 


THE  CHRISTIAN   THEORY   OF   THB   UNIVERSE.       61 

physician,  and  believes  that  God  in  the  person  of  Christ 
entered  into  the  world  as  a  redemptive  force  with  fixed 
intent  to  fight  with  and  destroy  moral  evil.  God  does 
not  fight  with  a  shadow,  or  undertake  labour  in  vain. 
Every  one  must  firmly  hold  this  who  believes  with  Christ 
in  the  dignity  of  human  nature ;  for  all  minimising  views 
of  sin,  which  treat  it  as  a  triviality,  an  infirmity,  a 
necessity,  or  as  the  negative  side  of  good,  though  humane 
and  charitable  in  appearance,  are  in  truth  insulting  to 
human  nature.  They  virtually  represent  man  as  a  being 
so  weak  that  it  is  idle  to  expect  virtue  from  him ;  as  a 
victim  of  necessity,  who  only  deludes  himself  when  he 
imagines  that  he  is  free;  as  a  thing  not  a  person,  as  a 
human  animal  not  a  rational  and  responsible  creature. 
Christianity  commits  no  such  offence  against  man's  dignity. 
It  shows  its  respect  for  man  as  a  moral  personality,  by 
imputing  to  him  the  guilt  of  his  evil  actions ;  and  its 
charity  towards  him,  not  by  denying  his  responsibility,  but 
by  making  his  sin  a  burden  even  to  the  heart  of  God. 

(2)  Sin  does  not  originate  with  God.  What  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  was  grieved  by  and  waged  war 
with,  cannot  have  come  into  the  world  by  His  Father's  will 
or  with  His  consent.  In  the  teaching  of  Christ  we  find  no 
account  of  the  origin  of  sin :  it  is  there  dealt  with  simply 
as  a  fact.  But  that  beautiful  saying,  "  Joy  shall  be  in 
heaven  over  one  sinner  that  repenteth,"  which  formed  a  part 
of  His  apology  for  loving  the  sinful,  excludes  the  idea  of 
sin  having  God  for  its  ultimate  cause.  Joy  over  repentance 
implies  sorrow  over  sin.  But  why  should  God  sorrow  over 
that  which  He  Himself  has  brought  into  being  ?  Sin, 
however  originating,  is  eternally  contrary  to  the  divine  will 

(3)  Sin  is  not  to  be  conceived  of  as  a  necessity,  a  fatal 
incurable  vice  of  nature,  inevitable  for  all  men  living  in 
the  body,  for  the  first  man  and  the  last,  and  all  between, 
Jesus  Christ  not  excepted.  The  fact  that  Jesus  represented 
Himself  as  a  moral  physician  teaches  us  rather  to  regard 
sin  as  a  disease  foreign  to  the  normal  condition  of  human 


62  APOLOGETICS. 

nature,  and,  being  curable,  capable  also  of  being  prevented. 
From  the  Christian  point  of  view,  sin  might  not  have  been, 
was  not  always  and  necessarily  in  existence.  How  it  evei 
came  to  be  may  be  a  great  mystery,  a  difficult  even  an 
insoluble  problem.  But  the  worst  solution  possible  la 
virtually  to  annihilate  the  phenomenon  to  be  explained  by 
regarding  it  as  a  physical  necessity.  The  best  and  wisest 
solution,  with  whatever  difficulties  it  may  be  beset,  is  to 
conceive  of  sin  as  the  result  of  a  wrong  choice  on  the  part 
of  primitive  man.  This  is  the  view  quaintly  embodied  in 
the  story  of  the  temptation  and  fall  of  Adam  in  the  book 
of  Genesis.  In  its  essential  features  that  product  of  ancient 
wisdom  still  approves  itself  to  our  minds  as  the  best  that 
can  be  said  on  the  subject  Nor  are  we  called  on  to 
surrender  the  view  therein  presented  by  the  discoveries 
or  speculations  of  recent  science.  It  is  not  irreconcilable 
with  the  doctrine  of  evolution.  That  doctrine  teaches  that 
in  the  gradual  course  of  the  ascent  of  life  there  arrived  in 
the  world  at  a  certain  period  a  being  who  was  not  merely 
an  animal,  but  in  rudimentary  form  human.  The  advent 
of  this  being  was  a  great  event,  for  with  it  began  the 
possibility  of  moral  life.  It  was  a  great  step  in  advance,  in 
which  the  Creator  might  well  take  pleasure.  Its  signifi- 
cance lay  not  in  this  that  a  man  had  appeared  already  as 
perfect  as  it  is  possible  for  man  to  be,  for  perfection  can 
be  reached  only  by  a  process  of  moral  development,  but  in 
this  that  a  man  had  appeared  at  all — a  being  made  in 
God's  image,  with  reason  and  will  and  affection.  But  this 
step  in  advance,  involving  indefinite  possibilities  of  further 
advance  in  a  new  region  of  life,  involved  also  risks  of 
degeneracy,  or  development  downwards.  For  in  the  new 
type  of  being  there  were  two  natures :  a  lower  animal,  and 
a  higher  human,  and  their  possessor  would  be  constantly 
called  on  to  choose  which  of  them  he  was  to  follow.  To 
choose  the  guidance  of  the  higher  nature  wm  to  go  on  in 
a  career  of  moral  advancement ;  to  choose  the  guidance  of 
the  lower  nature  was  to  tail  from  the   dignity  he   had 


THE   CHRISTIAN   THEORY   OF  THE   UNIVERSE.       63 

attained  in  becoming  hnmaa  This  is  the  story  of  the  fall 
from  the  point  of  view  of  modem  scienca  Is  it  very 
widely  different  from  the  account  given  in  the  book  of 
Genesis  ? 

(4)  Besides  sin,  or  moral  evil,  there  is  in  the  world 
much  physical  evil,  disease,  pain,  sorrow,  calamity,  death. 
Wliat  connection  is  there  between  the  two  kinds  of  evils  ? 
They  were,  as  we  have  seen,  closely  connected  in  Christ's, 
ministry.  He  was  a  healer  of  bodily  as  well  as  of  spiritual 
maladies.  In  one  case,  that  of  the  palsied  man.  He  seems 
to  have  looked  on  the  physical  ailment  as  the  effect  and 
penalty  of  sin.  And  there  can  be  no  question  that  very 
much  of  the  misery  that  is  in  the  world  is  directly  caused 
by  men's  evil  deeds.  Can  we  say  that  physical  evil 
universally  is  the  God-appointed  penalty  of  moral  evil  ? 
Does  this  view  enter  as  a  necessary  element  into  the 
Christian  theory  of  the  universe  ?  It  is  a  question  of  great 
difficulty  and  delicacy,  demanding  careful  handling,  seeing 
that  at  this  point  Christianity  comes  into  contact  with 
science,  which  has  its  own  way  of  dealing  with  the  subject. 
The  tendencies  of  science  and  religion  lie  in  opposite  directions 
here,  that  of  science  being  to  explain  physical  evil  as  far  as 
possible  without  taking  moral  evil  into  account,  while  that 
of  religion  is  to  find  the  ultimate  explanation  of  all  physical 
evil  in  the  existence  of  moral  evil.  It  is  very  easy  to  carry 
to  false  extremes  either  view,  and  the  wisest  position  seems 
to  be  that  which  aims  at  maintaining  a  balance  between 
thenL  Schleiermacher,  who  as  much  as  any  modern  theo- 
logian strove  to  do  justice  to  the  claims  of  both  science  and 
religion,  laid  down  the  thesis  that  the  collective  evil  in  the 
world  is  to  be  regarded  as  penalty  of  sin,  social  evil  directly, 
natural  evil  indirectly.  The  meaning  of  the  thesis,  in 
reference  to  natural  evil,  is  that,  viewed  objectively,  or  from 
the  scientific  point  of  view,  such  evil  is  not  caused  by  sin, 
but  that,  viewed  subjectively,  or  as  it  affects  us,  it  is  the 
penalty  of  sin,  because  without  sin  it  would  not  be  felt  to 
be  an  evii     Applied  to  death,  it  means  that  man  was 


O*  AP0L0GETICJ8. 

mortal  irrespective  of  his  fall,  and  that  nevertheless 
mortality  was  properly  regarded  by  man  fallen  as  the 
fruit  and  punishment  of  his  transgression.  This  position 
appears  to  be  as  satisfactory  as  any  one  that  could  be 
stated.  It  certainly  well  accords  with  the  spirit  of  Chris- 
tianity as  an  ethical  religion,  that  we  should  conceive  of 
the  present  state  of  the  physical  universe  as  in  a  divinely 
established  correspondence  with  the  moral  condition  of 
its  human  inhabitants.  This  view  does  not  imply  that  the 
order  of  nature  was  altered  after  sin  entered  into  the 
world.  It  need  imply  only  that  in  the  framing  of  nature 
God  had  regard  to  the  eventual  incoming  of  moral  eviL 
Death,  decay,  violence,  according  to  the  testimony  of  science, 
were  in  the  world  not  only  before  man  sinned,  but  long 
before  man  existed.  But  it  is  conceivable  that  they  were, 
because  he  was  to  be,  prior  in  time,  yet  posterior  in  creative 
intention.  We  may  imagine  God,  in  making  the  world, 
providing  that  it  should  be  a  suitable  abode  for  a  race  of 
morally  fallible  beings,  furnished  with  all  that  was  needful 
for  their  moral  discipline — with  evU  of  diverse  sorts  to  be 
regarded  as  penalty  of  sin,  and  also  with  manifold  forms  of 
good,  revealing  the  divine  benignity,  summoning  to  repent- 
ance, and  inspiring  in  the  penitent  hope  of  pardon.  This 
view  of  the  universe  harmonises  with  the  tendency  of 
Christianity  in  all  things  to  make  the  moral  category 
supreme.  It  has  the  further  recommendation  that  it  steers 
a  middle  course  between  optimism,  which  tries  hard  to  see 
no  dark  side  in  nature,  and  pessimism,  which  with  equal 
determination  shuts  its  eyes  to  its  good  side.  Christianity 
sees  in  the  world  both  evil  and  good ;  evil  because  man 
hath  sinned,  and  God  desired  that  man  sinning  should  find 
sin  to  be  a  bitter  thing ;  good  because  God  is  gracious  and 
dealeth  not  with  men  according  to  their  deserts ;  the  evil 
and  the  good  serving  the  opposite  purposes  of  judgment 
and  mercy,  and  forming  together  one  redemptive  economy, 
working  in  different  ways  towards  the  fulfilment  of  God's 
graci  Lis    purpose    in    Christ,   to    which    the    whole    con- 


THE   CHRISTIAN   THEORY   OF   THE   UNIVERSE.       66 

ititution  of  nature  and   the  whole  course  of  history  are 
subservient. 

4.  In  the  foregoing  statement  it  has  been  assumed  that 
God  stands  to  the  world  in  the  relation  of  a  Creator.  It 
is,  however,  important  that  this  should  be  formally  enun- 
ciated as  a  distinct  and  most  characteristic  feature  in  the 
Christian  theory  of  the  universe.  This  position  is  in- 
volved in  the  conception,  suggested  in  certain  sayings  of 
Christ  already  quoted,  of  the  world  as  an  instrument  in 
God's  hands  for  the  advancement  of  the  divine  kingdom.  The 
world  cannot  be  a  perfectly  pliant  instrument  in  the  hand 
of  God  unless  it  be  dependent  on  Him  for  its  being.  If  it 
existed  independently  of  Him  there  might  b6  something  in 
its  constitution  that  would  prove  intractable,  the  source 
of  evil  that  could  not  be  cured,  and  tending  seriously  to 
frustrate  His  beneficent  purposes.  Whether  the  idea  of 
creation  necessarily  implies  that  the  matter  of  the  world 
had  a  historical  beginning,  is  a  question  upon  which  theists 
are  divided,  some  holding  it  possible  for  the  universe  to  be 
the  creature  and  the  abode  of  God,  even  though  it  never 
came  into  being,  but  was  like  God,  etemaL*  Possibly  it 
might  guard  all  Christian  interests  to  say  that  the  world 
might  have  had  a  beginning,  and  that  if  eternal  it  was  so  by 
God's  will.  It  may  not  be  contrary  to  Christian  theism  to 
say  that  the  world  did  always  exist,  but  only  to  say  that  it 
must  have  existed  from  eternity,  and  that  God  could  no 
more  exist  without  a  world  than  the  world  could  exist 
without  God.  But  it  must  be  admitted  that  a  creation 
implying  a  historical  beginning  most  effectually  guards  the 
supremacy  of  God,  and  the  dependence  of  the  world  upon 
Him.  A  world  eternally  existing  is  apt  to  land  us  in  one 
of  two  anti-Christian  conceptions.  Either  the  eternally 
existent  world  assumes  in  its  primitive  state  the  aspect  of 
a  chaos  which  at  a  given  date  God  takes  in  hand  to  shape 

1  So  Dr.  Matheson  in  Oan  ihe  Old  Faith  Live  with  the  New  f  p.  105  ;  also 
Dr.  Martineau,  The  Seat  of  Anthwity  in  Beligkm,  p.  11.  SehleiennaclMf 
and  Rothe  held  the  lame  view. 


66  APOLOGETICS. 

intt*  a  cosmos,  or  it  becomes  a  stream  eternally  flowing  out 
of  the  divine  fountain  of  being.  The  former  was  the  view 
of  Greek  philosophers  who  conceived  of  the  raw  material 
of  the  world,  the  v\ij,  as  independent  of  God  for  its  being, 
and  thought  of  God  merely  as  the  shaper  of  chaos  into  a 
world  of  order,  as  far  as  that  was  possible  with  material 
pre-existing  as  a  ready-made  datum.  This  theory  obviously 
involves  an  endless  incurable  dualism.  The  other  concep- 
tion is  not  less  fatal  to  Christian  interests.  Under  it 
creation  becomes  a  process  of  necessary  emanation,  exclud- 
ing freedom  if  not  consciousness,  and  God  becomes  con- 
founded with  the  universe,  differing  from  it  only  in  name, 
as  the  natura  naturans  of  Spinoza's  system  differs  from 
natura  naturata}  The  alternatives  before  us,  if  we  con- 
ceive of  the  world  as  eternal,  are  thus  likely  to  be  either 
Manichsean  dualism  or  pantheism.  God  becomes  either 
one  of  two,  or  He  is  not  even  one. 

5.  The  Christian  faith  demands  not  only  that  God  be 
the  ultimate  source  of  the  world,  but  also,  and  for  the  same 
reason,  viz.  that  the  natural  may  subserve  the  moral  order, 
its  sustainer,  as  active  now  and  always  as  in  creation.  He 
is  not  necessarily  sole  actor  as  in  the  Bible  view,  in  which 
nature  and  second  causes  are  virtually  blotted  out,  and  God 
becomes  all  in  alL  This  biblical  pantheism,  by  which  nature 
is  absorbed  into  God,  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  dogmatic  or 
theoretical  negation  of  nature,  but  simply  as  an  intensely 
religious  mode  of  contemplating  the  world.  Compatibly 
therewith  we  can  recognise  a  nature,  a  fixed  physical  order, 
presenting  the  appearance  of  a  seK-acting  machine.  Yet 
the  appearance  only.  To  Christian  faith  the  world  is  not  a 
machine  to  which  God  stands  related  as  an  artisan,  with 
which,  the  more  it  approaches  perfection,  the  less  He  has 
to  do.  It  is  rather  an  organism  of  which  God  is,  as  it  were, 
the  living  souL  This  view  does  not  bind  ns  to  any  theory 
as  to  the  method  by  which  the  present  order  of  things  was 
produced.     It  ia  perfectly  compatible,  for  example,  with 

^  Ob  tbt  ■pMdatlT*  qnAem  if  Sfiaon,  vfie  ahaf^  Itt.  af  this  book. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  THEORY   OF   THE   UNIVERSE.        67 

the  evolutionary  thetry  as  to  the  origin  of  the  existing 
universe.  There  is  no  need  to  contend  for  special  creations 
of  plants  and  animals,  as  if  to  provide  some  work  for  God 
to  do ;  or  to  regard  life  as  something  which  God  alone 
could  produce  by  His  immediate  and  absolute  causality. 
We  can  admit  everywhere  natural  law,  yet  believe  also 
that  everywhere  is  divine  agency. 

6.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  Christian  view  of  the  world 
to  cherish  a  large  hope  for  the  future  of  humanity.  It  looks 
for  a  palingenesis,  "  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth  wherein 
dwelleth  righteousness."^  This  hope  is  justified  by  the 
doctrine  that  the  creation  has  the  kingdom  of  God  for  its 
moral  end.  This  being  so,  it  stands  to  reason  that  the 
kingdom  of  God  should  eventually  attain  dimensions  corre- 
sponding to  the  vast  preparations  made  for  its  coming. 
Turning  to  Christ's  teaching  and  life,  we  find  much  to 
encourage  high  expectations.  His  own  spirit  was  pre- 
eminently hopeful  He  hoped  where  others  despaired. 
The  outcasts  of  society  appeared  to  His  loving  eye  all 
capable  of  being  transformed  into  good  citizens  of  the 
kingdom.  Some  of  His  sayings  are  suggestive  of  a  great 
future  for  redemptive  regenerative  effort  —  those,  for  ex- 
ample, which  compare  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  leaven 
and  to  a  grain  of  mustard  seed.  Very  significant  also  in 
this  connection  is  the  apologetic  word :  "  They  that  be  whole 
need  not  a  physician,  but  they  that  are  sick."  The  imme- 
diate purpose  of  the  word  is  to  claim  for  the  speaker 
the  privilege  of  having  His  conduct  judged  in  the  light  of 
His  claim  to  be  a  physician.  But  its  permanent  didactic 
significance  goes  far  beyond  that  It  teaches  by  implication 
Christian  universalism,  for  if  the  patient's  need  is  to  be  the 
physician's  justification  and  guide,  then  he  must  go  where- 

^  Thii  striking  phrase  expressive  of  Christian  optimism  first  occnrs  in 
Isa.  Ixv.  17.  Canon  Cheyne,  in  his  Bampton  Lectures  on  ITie  Origin  and 
Religious  Contents  of  the  Psalter  (1891),  expresses  the  opinion  that  the  author 
of  Isa.  Ixv.  and  Ixvi.  was  stimulated  to  cherish  the  hope  embodied  in  the 
phrase  by  Zoroastriauism,  "  which  from  the  Gath^  to  the  Bandahis  ao  con- 
stantly proclaims  this  doctrine,"  p.  405. 


68  APOLOOETICS. 

ever  he  is  needed.  The  sphere  of  redemption  most  be 
coextensive  with  the  sphere  of  sin — wide  as  humanity.  It 
casts  a  gleam  of  hope  on  the  most  desperate  forms  of 
spiritual  disease ;  for  the  very  occasion  for  self-defensive 
speech  arose  out  of  the  attempt  to  bring  spiritual  healing 
to  classes  generally  regarded  as  hopelessly  lost  to  God  and 
goodness.  This  simple  pathetic  utterance  ♦"hus  proclaims 
that  the  redeeming  love  of  God  can  go  down  to  the  lowest 
depths  of  human  depravity,  and  raise  its  victims  up  to 
heavenly  heights,  and  that  its  breadth  and  length  are  those 
of  the  wide  world. 

The  Christian  hope  embraces  in  its  scope  both  worlds, 
both  the  present  life  and  that  which  is  to  come.  It  looks 
for  new  heavens  and  also  for  a  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth 
righteousness.  It  expects  great  beneficent  social  changes 
here,  as  well  as  a  great  salvation  hereafter.  It  is  not 
necessarily  other-worldly,  whatever  one-sidedness  in  that 
direction  it  may  have  exhibited  at  certain  periods  in  the 
history  of  the  Church.  The  object  of  its  loving  solicitude 
is  man,  not  merely  man's  soul ;  and  to  no  legitimate  human 
interest  can  it  possibly  be  indifferent.  Still,  while  not 
dwarfing  into  insignificance  the  present  earthly  life,  the 
life  eternal  occupies  a  large  place  in  the  Christian  system 
of  thouglit,  as  it  cannot  fail  to  do  in  the  case  of  all  who 
really  believe  that  man  survives  death.  And  the  question, 
Who  shall  share  in  that  eternal  life  ?  weighs  heavily  on 
the  Christian  heai't.  Some  cherish  the  belief  that  all  with- 
out exception  shall  participate  in  its  bliss,  and  that  such  as 
pass  out  of  this  life  unprepared  for  the  glorious  inheritance 
shall  be  fitted  for  it  by  a  disciplinary  process  in  an  inter- 
mediate state  of  being.  General  apologetic  ca»  recognise 
the  legitimacy  of  this  generous  forecast,  while  not  pronounc- 
ing dogmatically  on  the  question.  For  the  Christian  theory 
of  the  universe,  universal  salvation  is  not  an  article  of 
faith  any  more  than  it  is  a  heresy.  One  thing  introduces 
an  element  of  uncertainty  and  doubt — the  human  will. 
The  Christian   philosopher  does   not  believe  that  there  vk 


THE   CHRISTIAN    THEORY    OF   THE    UNIVERSE.       69 

anything  in  the  vXtj,  in  the  elements  of  matter  out  of  which 
the  universe  is  built,  capable  of  frustrating  the  divine  purpose. 
But  he  does  recognise  in  the  will  of  man  a  possible  barrier 
to  the  realisation  of  the  Creator's  beneficent  intentions.  He 
remembers  the  ominous  words  of  Jesus, "  I  would,  ye  would 
not,"  *  and  is  content  to  cherish  large  hope,  without  dog- 
matically asserting  the  larger  and  largest  possible.  It 
involves  no  injury  to  the  sovereignty  of  God  to  ascribe  to 
man  this  power  of  resisting  His  will.  God  freely  imposed 
on  Himself  the  limitation  arising  out  of  the  existence  of 
human  wills,  that  He  might  have  a  realm  in  which  He 
could  reign  by  love,  and  not  by  mere  omnipotent  force,  as 
in  the  lower  animate  and  inanimate  spheres  of  being. 

While  recognising  human  freedom  as  a  factor  in  deter- 
mining the  fortunes  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  the  Christian 
theorist  has  profound  trust  in  the  goodwill  of  God.  He 
believes  that  God  "  will  have  all  men  to  be  saved,"  and 
that  He  desires  His  will  to  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  done 
in  heaven,  and  that  He  is  constantly  working  towards  the 
accomplishment  of  these  beneficent  ends.  Fully  con- 
vinced that  the  divine  will  supports  and  guides  the  lower 
physical  evolution  of  the  universe,  he  is,  if  possible,  still 
more  assured  that  it  is  the  firm  ground  and  animating 
spirit  of  the  higher  spiritual  evolution.  He  believes  in  the 
Holy  Ghost,  and  in  His  incessant  struggle  for  the  birth  of 
the  better  world.  He  sees  in  the  great  crises  of  history 
His  action  as  a  mighty  wind ;  in  quiet  times  he  traces 
His  blessed  presence  and  influence  as  a  still,  noiseless,  yet 
vital  air,  the  breath  of  human  souls. 

In  reference  to  all  things  future  the  thoughts  of  men, 
even  of  inspired  men,  are  very  vague.  It  was  so  with  the 
Hebrew  prophets  when  they  gave  eloquent  utterance  to 
their  sublime  Messianic  hopes,  and  with  Christian  apostles 
when  they  foreshadowed  the  advent  of  the  divine  kingdom. 
With  regard  to  the  precise  nature  of  the  good  time  coming, 
and  the  hour  of  its  arrival,  they  were  laft  to  their  owd 
^  Matt,  xxiii.  87. 


70  APOL0OBTI0& 

imeginationt  veiy  much  as  we  are.      The  apostolic  age 

expected  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  to  be  apocalyptic  in 
character,  sadden,  and  soon.  The  lapse  of  time  heis 
corrected  these  early  impressions,  and  taught  us  to  expect 
the  grand  consummation  as  the  gradual  result  of  a  slow 
secular  process  of  development,  rather  than  as  the  astound- 
ing effect  of  a  sudden,  speedy,  miraculous  catastrophe. 
But  we  must  beware  lest,  with  the  natural  mistakes  of  the 
primitive  Church,  its  hope  also  pass  away.  It  becomes 
the  disciple  of  Christ  to  cherish  a  spirit  of  high  hope 
for  himself,  for  the  Church,  for  mankind;  to  believe  in 
progress  along  the  whole  line,  and  not  to  settle  down  into 
the  sluggish  creed  of  an  inert  religious  conservatism  which 
believes  that  the  divine  redemptive  force  has  spent  itself, 
and  that  all  God's  great  achievements  lie  in  the  past  We 
ought,  on  the  contrary,  to  expect  God  to  do  greater  things 
in  the  future  than  He  has  done  in  any  past  age,  greater 
things  than  are  recorded  in  the  pages  of  history,  or  than  it 
enters  into  the  mind  of  the  average  Christian  to  ask  oi 
even  imagine.  We  must  look  for  results  more  worthy  of 
the  love  of  God,  more  commensurate  with  the  moral 
grandeur  of  Christ's  self-sacrifice,  more  clearly  demonstrat- 
ing that  Christ  is  the  centre  of  the  universe.  The  Chris- 
tian theory  of  the  universe  is  inherently  and  invineibly 
optimistic.  Its  optimism  is  not  shallow  or  impatient  Its 
eyes  are  open  to  the  evil  that  is  everywhere  in  the  world, 
and  it  does  not  expect  these  evUs  to  be  cured  in  a  day,  or 
a  generation,  or  a  century,  or  even  a  millennium.  Never- 
theless its  fixed  faith  is  that  cured  they  shall  be  in  the 
long-run. 


XHB  FANTHEISHO  THBOBT.  71 

CHAPTEK  IIL 

THE  PANTHBISTIO  THEOBT, 

Literature. — Spinoza,  Ethiea  ord.  geom.  demonstrata; 
Pollock,  Life  of  Spinoza,  1880 ;  Martineau,  Study  of  Spinoza^ 
1882 ;  Principal  Caird,  Spinoza,  1888  ;  Hegel,  Fhilosophi$ 
der  Religion;  Seth,  Hegelianism  and  Personality,  1887; 
Strauss,  Glauhenslehre ;  Lotze,  MiJcrokosmus,  2te  Aufl. 
1869-72  (translated  by  T.  &  T.  Clark);  FHnt,  Antitheistie 
Theories,  1877;  Hartmann,  i>i«  Krim  des  Christenthums,  1880. 

The  pantheistic  theory  of  the  universe  is  in  deadly 
antagonism  to  Christianity  at  all  points.  It  negatives  all 
the  cardinal  Christian  ideas — the  personality  of  God,  the 
creation  of  the  worid,  the  freedom  of  man,  the  reality  of 
sin,  providence,  redemption,  immortality.  The  radical 
principle  of  the  theory  is  that  God  and  the  world  are  one. 
It  denies  to  God  any  being  distinct  from  the  world,  and 
to  the  world  any  being  distinct  from  God.  It  may  assume 
different  forms  according  to  the  manner  in  which  the 
divine  nature  is  conceived.  God  may  be  conceived  as 
spirit,  or  as  substance ;  in  the  one  case  there  results  an 
idealistic  form  of  pantheism,  in  the  other  a  materialistic 
The  former  species  of  pantheism  regards  the  world  as  the 
garment  through  which  the  Great  Spirit  reveals  Himself ; 
the  latter  views  all  particular  beings,  animate  or  inanimate, 
as  accidents  or  modes  of  one  universal  substance,  waves  on 
the  surface  of  an  infinite  ocean,  which  is  God.  To  all 
practical  intents  the  two  are  one. 

Pantheistic  modes  of  contemplating  the  universe  have 
prevailed  more  or  less  from  the  earliest  ages,  and  in 
different  countries,  e.g.  India  and  Greece  ;  but  the  father  of 
modern  European  pantheism,  by  general  acknowledgment, 
is  Benedict  Spinoza,  of  whose  views  on  the  subject  of 
Eevelation  and  the  Scriptures  a  brief  account  has  already 
been  given.     On  many  grounds  Spinoza  is  entitled  to  be 


72  APOLOGETICS. 

regarded  as  the  typical  exponent  of  the  pantheistic  system 
as  a  component  element  of  modern  European  thought; 
very  specially  because  of  the  great  extent  to  which  he  has 
influenced  the  minds  of  leading  philosophers  and  theo- 
logians during  the  last  hundred  years.  Instead  of  dis- 
cussing pantheism  in  the  abstract,  or  attempting  to  sketch 
the  history  of  this  type  of  speculative  thought,  it  will  best 
serve  our  purpose  to  study  the  extremely  significant  sample 
presentea  to  our  view  in  Spinoza's  great  work,  Ethica 
ordine  geometrico  demonstrata.  No  better  or  more  direct 
way  to  acquaintance  with  the  genius  of  pantheism  can  be 
taken  than  to  make  ourselves  familiar  with  the  contents  of 
this  treatise,  which  in  five  books  discourses  successively  of 
God,  the  nature  and  origin  of  the  mind,  the  origin  and  nature 
3f  the  affections,  human  servitude  or  the  power  of  the 
affections,  and  human  liberty  or  the  power  of  the  intellect. 
Spinoza  was  a  disciple  of  Descartes,  and  his  philosophy 
may  be  viewed  as  an  attempt  to  improve  on  that  of  the 
illustrious  Frenchman,  by  reducing  its  dualism  to  unity. 
Descartes  recognised  besides  God  two  mutually  independent 
substances,  matter  and  mind,  the  characteristic  property  of 
the  former  being  extension,  and  of  the  latter  thought. 
Spinoza,  on  the  other  hand,  acknowledged  only  one  infinite 
indivisible  substance,  whereof  thought  and  extension  are 
attributes,  and  all  particular  beings,  extended  or  thinking, 
modes.  This  one  substance  he  called  God.  In  his  famous 
treatise  on  Ethics  it  is  Spinoza's  humour  to  prove  all 
things  in  mathematical  fashion,  his  theses  being  marshalled 
in  array  like  the  propositions  of  Euclid,  each  proposition 
in  succession  being  provided  with  its  formal  demonstration, 
and  the  demonstration  being  occasionally  followed  up  by 
corollaries  and  scholia.  The  fourteenth  proposition  of  the 
first  book  of  the  Ethics  is :  "  Besides  God  no  substance  can 
exist  or  be  conceived."  The  proof  of  this  proposition  is 
rendered  very  easy  by  the  definition  of  substance  given  at 
the  beginning  of  the  treatise,  which  is  in  these  terms :  "  By 
substance  I  understand  that  which  is  in  itself,  and  is  con- 


THE   PANTHEISTIC   THEORY.  73 

ceived  by  itself ;  that  is,  that  whose  concept  does  not  need 
for  its  formation  the  concept  of  any  other  thing."  Of 
course  if  it  belong  to  the  nature  of  substance  to  be  self- 
existent  and  self-caused,  then  there  can  be  only  one  sub- 
stance, that  is  God.  God  being  the  sole  substance,  it 
follows  that  He  is  both  an  extended  and  a  thinking  being : 
at  once  "  res  extenaa "  and  "  res  cogitans,"  the  cause  of  all 
particular  beings  which  are  extended  and  which  think,  in 
virtue  of  the  attribute  corresponding  to  the  nature  of  each 
being,  the  cause  of  things  extended  in  so  far  as  He  is  res 
extensa,  the  cause  of  things  which  think  in  so  far  as  He  is 
res  cogitans.  He  is  therefore  the  cause  of  the  human 
intellect,  and  as  such  is  Himself  an  intellectual  being.  The 
human  mind  is  indeed  a  part  of  the  infinite  intellect  of 
God.  But  we  are  warned  not  to  infer  from  this  that  God's 
intellect  is  like  man's.  The  intellect  and  will  which  con- 
stitute the  essence  of  God  agree  with  the  intellect  and  will 
of  man  only  in  name,  not  otherwise  than  the  celestial  sign 
of  the  dog  and  the  animal  called  dog  which  barks.  All 
actual  intellect  is  to  be  referred  not  to  God  Himself,  but 
to  God  in  man ;  in  Spinoza's  terminology :  ad  naturam 
naturatam,  not  ad  naturam  naturantem.  The  two  uncouth 
phrases,  natura  naturans  and  natura  naturata,  are  employed 
by  Spinoza  to  indicate  precisely  the  relations  of  God  and 
nature.  They  imply  that  God  and  nature  are  the  same 
thing  under  different  aspects.  God  is  nature  viewed 
actively,  or  as  cause;  nature  is  the  universal  substance 
with  its  attributes  and  modes  viewed  passively,  or  as  effect. 
Such  being  the  relation  between  God  and  nature,  we 
know  what  doctrine  of  creation  to  expect  from  the 
Spinozan  system.  It  is  as  follows:  All  things  exist 
eternally  by  necessity.  All  things  exist  which  can  exist; 
everything  possible  is  actual  and  necessary.  God  eternally 
produces  all  He  has  power  to  produce.  His  power  being 
identical  with  His  essence,  and  that  in  turn  being  identical 
with  His  existence.  Things  could  not  have  been  produced 
in  any  other  mode  nor  in  any  other  order  than  they  have 


74  APOLOG£nC& 

been  produced  There  is  no  such  tl  mg  m  eoi^dngenty  in 
the  world,  except  in  respect  of  out  'gnorance.  Of  all 
things  whatever  God  is  the  immanent  not  the  transient 
cause.  Finally,  God,  or  nature  viewed  actively,  produces 
all  things  without  reference  to  an  aim :  there  is  no  design 
or  purpose  in  the  universe.  The  eternal  infinite  Ens  which 
we  call  God  acts  with  the  same  necessity  with  which  He 
exists.  Therefore  the  words  perfect  and  imperfect  have  no 
sense  in  reference  to  the  intrinsic  nature  of  things,  but  are 
simply  relative  to  our  human  way  of  conceiving  things  as 
belonging  to  species,  and  expressive  of  our  opinion  as  to 
the  comparative  degree  of  completeness  with  which  the 
characteristics  of  the  species  are  reproduced  in  the  in- 
dividuals. Whatever  is  real  is  perfect;  reality  and  per- 
fection are  the  same  thing.  The  common  notion  that 
nature,  like  man,  acts  for  an  end,  or  that  God  directs  all 
things  towards  an  end,  Spinoza  treats  as  a  delusion  and 
vain  deceit,  due  partly  to  ignorance  and  partly  to  self- 
importance,  and  fraught  with  mischievous  consequences, 
as  when  men  see  in  the  inconvenient  phenomena  of  nature 
an  expression  of  divine  anger  against  them  for  their  sins. 
The  truth  is,  there  is  no  purpose  in  events ;  all  things, 
whether  good  or  evil  so-called,  proceed  by  an  eternal 
necessity  of  nature,  and  with  the  greatest  possible  per- 
fection, but  without  design  or  final  causea  This  doctrine 
implies  that  even  moral  evil,  as  we  call  it,  belongs  to  the 
eternal  order,  and  is  in  reality  good.  From  this  inference 
Spinoza  does  not  shrink.  To  the  question,  Why  did  God 
not  create  all  men  so  that  they  should  be  guided  by  the 
sole  governance  of  reason  ?  he  acknowledges  that  he  has  no 
other  reply  to  give  than  this :  "  Because  there  was  not 
wanting  to  God  matter  wherewith  to  create  all  things 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  grade  of  perfection ;  or,  to 
speak  more  properly,  because  the  laws  of  nature  were  so 
ample  that  they  sufficed  for  the  production  of  all  things 
which  can  be  conceived  by  an  infinite  intellect." 

These  words,   whioli  form   the  conclusion   of  Spinoza's 


(THE   PANTHEISTIC  THEORY.  76 

discussion  of  the  doctrine  of  final  causes  at  the  end  of  the 
first  book  of  the  Ethics,  signify  that  the  idea  of  the  universe 
demands  the  existence  of  all  sorts  of  beings,  that  therefore 
sinners  and  fools  are  needed  to  make  a  world  not  less  than 
saints  and  wise  men.  Such  a  sentiment  could  be  enter- 
tained only  by  one  who  had  no  belief  in  the  reality  of 
moral  distinctions  from  the  divine  point  of  view,  or  in  the 
freedom  of  man.  Accordingly  Spinoza  makes  no  pretence 
of  believing  in  either.  He  admits,  of  course,  that  there  is 
a  difference  between  a  wise  man  and  a  fool,  but  he  sees 
in  the  difference,  admitted  as  a  matter  of  fact,  no  ground 
for  feelings  of  approbation  and  disapprobation.  God,  he 
teaches,  has  no  resentment  against  the  evil  and  foolish, 
seeing  He  has  brought  them  into  existence,  and  we 
ought  to  imitate  God  in  this.  Against  this  doctrine  that 
evil  and  good  are  alike  to  God  it  might  seem  to  be  a  valid 
objection  that  the  evil  and  the  good,  the  wise  and  the 
foolish,  do  not  fare  alike.  Spinoza  touches  on  the  point  in 
one  of  his  letters  in  reply  to  a  correspondent  who  had 
started  the  difficulty.  "  God,"  he  remarks,  "  is  not  angry 
with  any,  for  all  things  happen  according  to  His  mind,  but 
I  deny  that  therefore  all  ought  to  be  happy,  for  men  can 
be  excusable  and  nevertheless  want  happiness  and  be 
tormented  in  many  ways.  A  horse  is  excusable  for  being 
a  horse  and  not  a  man,  nevertheless  he  ought  to  be  a  horse 
in  lot  and  not  a  man.  He  who  is  mad  from  the  bite  of  a 
dog  is  excusable,  nevertheless  he  is  justly  suffocated ;  and 
in  like  manner  he  who  is  unable  to  govern  his  desires  is 
indeed  to  be  excused  for  his  infirmity,  nevertheless  he 
cannot  enjoy  peace  of  mind,  and  the  knowledge  and  love 
of  God,  but  necessarily  perishes."  *  Moral  responsibility 
oould  not  be  more  expressly  denied  than  by  such  com- 
parisons. The  denial  is  an  essential  characteristic  of  true 
pantJieism. 

Spinoza's   doctrine  as  to  the  nature  and  origin  of  the 
mind  may  now  be  briefly  explained.     HiB  definition  of  a 

1  Epiatola  xz>. 


76  APOLOGETICS. 

mind  is  peculiar.  "  The  first  thing,"  he  tells  us,  "  which 
constitutes  the  actual  being  of  the  human  mind  is  nothing 
else  than  the  idea  of  some  particular  thing  actually  jyist- 
ing."^  This  vague  thesis  is  explained  in  a  subsequent 
proposition  by  the  more  definite  statement  that  the  object 
of  the  idea  constituting  the  human  mind  is  a  body,  or  a 
certain  mode  of  extension  actually  existing.  Our  mind,  in 
short,  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  idea  of  our  body. 
Mind  and  body  are  the  same  thing  conceived  under 
different  aspects,  under  the  attribute  of  thought  as  mind, 
under  the  attribute  of  extension  as  body.  Hence  it  follows 
that  the  order  of  the  actions  and  passions  of  the  body 
corresponds  to  the  order  of  the  actions  and  passions  of  the 
mind.  This  correspondence,  however,  is  no  proof,  as  is  com- 
monly supposed,  of  interaction.  The  mind  exerts  no  causal 
influence  on  the  body  ;  its  states  are  produced  by  the  laws 
of  corporeal  nature  alone.  On  this  theory  the  body  is  as 
independent  of  the  mind  as  a  cause  of  motion  as  if  it  were 
a  mere  machine.  On  the  other  hand,  the  mind  is  dependent 
on  the  body,  not  indeed  as  a  cause  of  thought,  but  as  a 
condition  of  the  continuance  of  its  being.  The  mind, 
according  to  Spinoza,  can  imagine  and  remember  nothing 
save  while  the  body  lasts.  When  the  body  perishes  the 
mind  ceases  to  exist  except  as  an  eternal  idea  in  God.  - 
Such  is  the  only  immortality  possible  on  the  Spinozan 
system.  When  the  body  dies  no  individual  mind  survives, 
but  merely  an  idea  of  a  thing  that  has  been  in  the  divine 
mind,  all  wliose  tlioughts  are  eternal.  Nothing  else  was 
to  be  expected  from  the  definition  of  mind  with  which  we 
set  out.  My  mind  is  the  idea  of  my  body  as  actually 
existing.  Of  course  when  the  body  is  dissolved,  the  mind 
perishes  along  with  it.  Take  away  the  substance  and  the 
shadow  vanishes. 

Such  is  the  pantheistic  creed  as  frankly  expounded  by 
Spinoza.  The  universe  is  bound  in  an  iron  chain  of 
necessity,  which  leaves  no  room  for  freedom  either  in  Gk)d 

^  Book  II.  prop.  zL 


TBOB  PANTHEISTIC  THEORY.  77 

or  in  man.  The  course  of  nature  is  unalterably  fixed,  and 
needs  no  alteration.  Whatever  is  must  be,  and  whatever 
is  is  right.  All  individual  life  is  transient,  only  the  one 
infinite  substance  is  eternal.  Nature  is  the  ever-abiding, 
yet  superficially  ever-changing  ocean  of  being,  and  we  men 
and  all  things  we  see  are  the  waves  or  tht  foam  on  its 
surface ;  here  to-day,  gone  to-morrow,  as  the  winds  deter- 
mine. To  this  system  all  religions  must  be  pretty  much 
alike — all  tolerable  as  modes  under  which  the  great  One 
and  All  is  worshipped.  One  may  rise  higher  than  another 
in  the  scale  of  rationality,  and  approach  more  nearly  to 
that  pure  intellectual  love  of  God  in  which,  according  to 
Spinoza,  wisdom  and  true  felicity  lie.  In  that  respect 
Christianity  may  be  entitled  to  occupy  the  first  place,  and 
Christ  its  author  worthy  to  be  regarded  as  the  wisest  of 
the  sons  of  men.  In  justice  to  Spinoza,  it  ought  to  be 
stated  that  he  ungrudgingly  conceded  this  position  to 
Christ 

Eegard  to  space  forbids  the  exposition  at  similar  length 
of  any  of  the  more  recent  presentations  of  the  pantheistic 
theory.  One  is,  indeed,  glad  to  escape  the  task,  not  only 
on  account  of  its  difficulty,  but  because,  in  view  of  the 
moral  aspects  of  the  system,  it  is  invidious  to  apply  the 
epithet  pantheistic  to  any  philosophy  which  has  not  become 
a  matter  of  history.  The  philosophy  most  worthy  of  atten- 
tion in  the  present  connection  is  that  of  Hegel.  But  the 
disciples  of  this  great  master  have  not  been  agreed  as  to 
the  tendency  of  his  doctrines,  some  putting  on  them  a 
Christian  construction,  while  others,  such  as  Strauss,  have 
used  them  for  the  subversion  of  Christianity.  The  former 
section  of  the  school  may  be  considered  the  more  faithful 
to  the  spirit  and  aim  of  the  master,  who  claimed  to  be  a 
defender  of  the  fai^h,  and  regarded  his  philosophy  as  a 
translation  into  the  forms  of  speculative  thought  of  the 
articles  embodied  in  the  Christian  creed.  But  into  the 
delicate  question  of  the  religious  tendency  of  the  Hegelian 
philosophy  it  is  unnecessary  here  to  enter.     It  will  suffice 


78  APOLOGETICS. 

to  point  out  the  difference  between  it  and  the  Spinozan 
system  in  their  respective  ways  of  conceiving  God,  and  His 
relation  to  the  universe.* 

The  points  of  contrast  between  the  two  philosophies 
are  chiefly  these :  In  the  Hegelian  system,  the  absolute 
Being,  God,  is  conceived  as  Spirit ;  whereas  in  the  Spinozan 
He  is  represented  more  materialistically  as  substance. 
Again,  in  the  former,  God,  the  world,  and  man  are  con- 
nected together  by  a  process  involving  succession,  if  not  in 
time,  at  least  in  logical  thought  The  absolute  spirit 
becomes  objective  to  himself,  becomes  another,  in  the 
world  of  nature ;  makes  for  himself,  as  it  were,  a  body  in 
the  material  universe,  and  loses  himself  therein.  Then  in 
man  he  returns  to  himself,  recognises  himself,  becomes 
conscious  of  himself,  and  the  great  world-process  is  com- 
pleta  In  the  Spinozan  system,  on  the  other  hand, 
material  things,  modes  of  extension,  and  mental  things, 
modes  of  thought,  are,  so  to  speak,  contemporaneous  and 
mutually  independent  manifestations  of  the  one  eternal 
indivisible  substance.  There  is  not  one  process  binding 
God,  nature,  and  man  together,  but  two  parallel  processes, 
which  are  mutually  exclusive  though  not  without  corre- 
spondence, the  manifestation  of  the  eternal  substance  as  a 
res  extensa  in  things  material,  and  the  manifestation  of 
the  same  substance  as  a  res  cogitans  in  human  minds.  In 
this  respect  there  is  a  clearer  affinity  between  Spinoza  and 

*  The  late  Professor  Green,  of  Oxford,  gives  thia  statement  of  the  vital 
truth  which  Hegel  had  to  teach:  "That  there  is  one  spiritual  self- con- 
sciousness, of  wliioh  all  that  is  real  is  the  activity  and  expression  ;  that  we 
are  related  to  this  spiritual  being,  not  merely  as  parts  of  the  world  which  ia 
its  expression,  but  as  partakers  in  some  inchoate  measure  of  the  self-con- 
sciousness through  which  it  at  once  constitutes  and  distinguishes  itself  from 
the  world ;  that  this  participation  is  the  source  of  morality  and  religion." 
He  adds  :  "It  still  remains  to  be  preseuted  in  a  form  which  will  command 
Bome  general  acceptance  among  serious  and  scientific  men." — Works,  iii. 
146.  With  reference  to  the  epithet  "  Hegelian,"  he  remarks  that  "  No  one 
who  by  trial  has  become  aware  of  the  difficulty  of  mastering,  still  more  of 
appreciating,  Hegel's  system  would  be  in  a  hurry  to  accept  the  title  lor  hiiu 
self  or  to  bestow  it  on  another." — Workt,  iiL  129. 


THE   PANTHEISTIC    THEORY.  79 

Schelling  than  between  Spinoza  and  HegeL  In  philosophy 
Schelling  was  a  chameleon,  and  assumed  in  succession  very 
diverse  aspects.  It  has  been  remarked  of  him,  that  in  all 
phases  of  his  ever- varying  speculative  career  he  always 
leaned  on  some  great  name.  Among  his  philosophic  heroes 
and  models  Spinoza  had  his  turn,  and  when  his  star  was  in 
the  ascendant  Schelling  adopted  at  once  his  views  and  his 
demonstrative  method  of  exhibiting  them,  and  taught  an 
Absolute  which  was  neither  subject  nor  object,  neither 
mind  nor  matter,  but  the  indifference  or  the  identity  of 
both,  yet  revealing  itself  at  once  as  matter  and  as  mind,  as 
object  and  as  subject,  as  nature  and  as  thought. 

In  proceeding  now  to  criticise  the  pantheistic  theory  in 
the  interest  of  the  Christian  mode  of  conceiving  God  and 
the  world  and  their  relations,  I  begin  with  the  obser- 
vation that  this  theory  could  not  have  taken  the  place  it 
holds  in  the  history  of  speculative  thought,  nor  have 
fascinated  so  many  noble  truth-loving  minds  in  all  ages, 
unless  it  had  contained  elements  of  real  value.  And  it  is 
not  difficult  to  divine  where  its  strength  lies.  Pantheism 
has  attractions  for  all  parts  of  our  spiritual  nature,  for  the 
intellect,  for  the  religious  feeling,  for  the  heart.  Its 
fascination  for  the  intellect  lies  in  its  imposing  conception 
of  the  universe  as  a  unity.  The  one  and  the  aU — the 
mere  combination  of  the  two  ideas  has  a  charm  for  the 
imagination.  God  the  one,  and  at  the  same  time  the  all : 
the  universe  of  being  and  its  ground  not  two  but  one, 
the  sublime  thought  gratifies  the  craving  of  the  mind  for 
unity  in  knowledge,  tracing  all  existence  to  one  fountain- 
head,  and  reducing  all  mysteries  to  a  single  all-compre- 
hending one,  that  of  God's  eternal  being.  Its  fascination 
for  the  religious  feeling  lies  in  its  doctrine  of  divine 
immanence.  The  God  of  pantheism  is  not,  like  that  of 
deism,  outside  the  world,  but  within  it,  its  life  and  soul, 
present  in  everything  that  is  or  that  lives ;  in  the  clouds 
and  the  winds,  in  the  leaves  of  the  trees  and  in  every 
blade  of  grass,  in  the  bee  and  the  bird,  endowing  th^n 


80  APOLOGETIOS. 

with  skill  to  biild  their  cell  or  nest;  in  man,  inspiring 
him  with  lofty  thoughts  and  noble  purposes.  Finally,  its 
fascination  for  the  heart  lies  in  its  doctrines  of  necessity 
and  of  the  perishableness  of  all  individual  life.  These 
supply  an  opiate  to  deaden  the  feeling  of  pity  awakened  by 
the  contemplation  of  the  world's  sin  and  misery.  In 
moments  of  depression  the  heart  that  bleeds  over  the 
crime  and  wretchedness  everywhere  visible  is  tempted  to 
clutch  at  a  theory  which  relieves  the  weak  of  a  burden  of 
moral  responsibility  too  heavy  for  them,  and  to  accept  as 
the  future  destiny  of  man  annihilation,  rather  than  face  the 
dread  alternative  of  the  bare  possibility  of  eternal  loss 
involved  in  every  theory  that  is  in  earnest  in  asserting  the 
reality  of  moral  distinctions. 

Besides  these  practical  attractions,  pantheism  may  appear 
on  a  superficial  view  to  possess  some  speculative  advan- 
tages as  compared  with  Christian  theism.  Among  the 
subjects  on  which  it  may  seem  to  offer  the  best  solution 
of  speculative  problems  are  the  j.  rrsonality  of  God  and  the 
creation  of  the  world. 

Pantheism  meets  the  theistic  assertion  of  divine  person- 
ality with  the  counter-assertion  that  personality  is  not 
compatible  with  the  idea  of  the  absolute,  that  an  absolute 
personality  is  simply  a  contradiction  in  terms.  This  posi- 
tion is  essential  to  the  pantheistic  theory.  That  it  was 
held  by  Spinoza  may  be  inferred  from  several  characteristic 
elements  in  his  teaching,  such  as  that  will  and  intellect 
are  one,  that  the  intellect  of  God  resembles  intellect  in 
man  in  name  only,  that  all  actual  intellect  is  to  be  referred 
to  natui'a  naturata,  that  all  human  minds  together  consti- 
tute the  eternal  and  infinite  intellect  of  God,  which,  as 
Strauss  has  pointed  out,  implies  that  the  divine  mind  is 
nothing  distinct  from  particular  human  intellects,  but 
simply  their  immanent  unity.*  In  this  connection  it  is 
not   irrelevant  to  mention  the  curious  fact  that  a  brief, 

*  Vide  his  Olaubemlehre,  i.  507-8.     Spinoa's  words  are  i  "  Omnes  (mentes) 
simul  Dei  aeteruuin  et  infinitlm  intellectum  conatatuant," — Ethic,  v.  40  schoL 


THE   I'^NTHEISTIC   THEORY.  81 

pithy  sentence  of  Spinoza's,  occurring  casually  in  one  of 
his  letters,  has  been  made  the  basis  of  all  modern  argu- 
mentation against  the  personality  of  God.  The  sentence  is 
determinatio  negatio  est — definition  is  negation.  Spinoza 
made  the  statement  in  connection  with  an  attempt  to  prove 
that  the  figure  of  a  body  is  a  purely  negative  thing.  The 
modern  application  to  the  subject  now  under  consideration 
is  as  follows:  All  determination  is  negation,  personality 
is  a  determination,  therefore  personality  is  a  negation ;  but 
negation  can  have  no  place  in  connection  with  the  most 
real  Being,  therefore  personality  cannot  properly  be  ascribed 
to  God.     Fichte  puts  the  argument  thus : 

*'  You  insist  that  Grod  has  personality  and  conBciousness. 
What  do  you  call  personality  and  consciousness  ?  No  doubt 
that  which  you  find  in  yourselves.  But  the  least  attention 
will  satisfy  you  that  you  cannot  think  this  without  limita- 
tion and  finitude.  Therefore  you  make  the  divine  Being 
a  limited  being  like  yourselves  by  ascribing  to  Him  that 
attribute,  and  you  have  not  thought  God,  as  you  wished,  but 
only  multiplied  yourself  in  thought"  * 

Strauss  expresses  the  same  view,  with  his  usual  clearness, 
in  these  terms: 

*To  speak  of  a  personal  God  appears  a  combination  of 
ideas  of  which  the  one  excludes  the  other.  Personality  is 
self-collected  selfhood  as  against  another  from  which  it 
separates  itself.  Absoluteness,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the 
comprehensive,  unlimited,  which  excludes  from  itself  nothing 
save  that  very  exclusiveness  which  lies  in  the  idea  of  per- 
sonality. An  absolute  personality,  therefore,  is  a  rum-^nSt 
which  is  really  unthinkable."* 

This  attribute  of  personality  implicitly  excluded  from 
the  Spinosan  system,  and  explicitly  denied  and  reasoned 
out  of  existence  by  modern  philosophy.  Christian  theism 
cannot  afford  to  part  with.  The  maintenance  of  the 
divine  personality  may  be  beset  with  speculative  difficultj, 
*  Wtrbt,  T.  167.  ■  GkmibeMUkn,  L  604-& 

V 


82  APOLOGETICS. 

but  the  price  which  pantheism  pays  for  riddance  from  the 
difficulty  is  too  dear.*  For  no  divine  personality  means  no 
real  fellowship  with  the  Supreme.  The  intellectual  love 
of  God,  wherein  Spinoza  placed  man's  chief  good,  is,  by  his 
own  admission,  simply  God's  love  of  Himself,  and  as  God 
loves  Himself  only  in  man,  it  is  on  man's  part  simply  the 
enjoyment  of  his  own  existence  as  a  rational  being. 

But  how  is  the  difficulty  of  reconciling  personality  with 
absoluteness  to  be  got  over  ?  How  can  we  think  of  God 
as  a  self-conscious,  self-determining  Ego  without  making 
Him  dependent  on  something  outside  of  Him  which  helps 
Him  to  attain  self  -  consciousness,  as  we  ourselves  are 
dependent  on  the  world  around  us,  as  an  aid  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  being  a  distinct  whole  over  against  the 
universe  ?  Now,  let  it  be  remarked,  in  the  first  place,  that 
if  personality,  as  involving  limitation,  must  be  denied  to 
the  Absolute,  then  every  attribute  whatever  must  be  denied 
to  God  for  the  same  reason,  even  because  determinatio 
negatio  est.  God  must  be  conceived  as  a  Being  of  whom, 
or  which  rather,  no  affirmation  can  be  made,  as  pure 
abstract  being,  equal  to  nothing  because  it  is  nothing  in 
particular.  Yet  not  thus  did  Spinoza  conceive  God.  He 
ascribed  to  the  infinite  substance  at  least  two  attributes, 
those,  vii  of  extension  and  thought,  whereof  all  things 
known  to  us  are  modes.  Nay,  he  ascribed  to  it  an  infinite 
number  of  attributes,  apparently  seeking  to  guard  the  abso- 
luteness of  God  from  violation,  not  by  denying  to  Him 
possession  of  any  attributes,  but  by  multiplying  the  number 
of  attributes  ad  infinitum,  making  God,  in  the  expressive 
phrase  of  Gregory  Nazianzen,  "  a  sea  of  being."  On  this 
view,  what  objection  can  there  be  to  include  personality 
among  the  infinite  number  of  attributes  ? 

Some  pantheists  do  conceive  of  God  as  the  absolutely 

*  LipsioB,  who  represents  tbe  neo-Eantian  Philoeophy  in  Dogmatic,  while 
admitting  divine  personality  to  be  speculatively  a  contradiction,  yet  holds 
it  to  be  a  religious  necessity.  Vide  his  Lehrbuch  der  Evangeliscli-Pr» 
testantisch  Dogmatik,  §  22& 


THE  PANTHEISTIC   THEORY.  88 

undetermined,  and  their  view  is  perhaps  the  more  con- 
sistent with  the  genius  of  the  system.  Accepting  this  view, 
what  have  we  for  a  God  ?  Not  a  real  being,  but  a  logical 
abstraction.  Is  there  no  absolute  but  this  ?  Is  there  not 
an  absolute  which  really  and  necessarily  exists,  as  even 
Spinoza  believed  ?  And  if  there  be  such  an  absolute,  will 
he  not  be  the  very  opposite  of  the  logical  one  ?  The 
logical  absolute  being  the  utterly  indeterminate,  the  real 
absolute  wiU  be  the  infinitely  self-determined ;  the  logical 
absolute  being  absolute  emptiness,  the  real  absolute  will 
be  absolute  fulness ;  the  logical  absolute  being  incapable  of 
relations,  the  real  absolute,  while  not  needing,  will  be 
capable  of  all  sorts  of  relations.  Pantheistic  philosophers 
do  not  settle  the  question  as  to  the  existence  of  such  an 
absolute  simply  by  not  choosing  to  believe  in  Him,  and 
preferring  in  the  pursuit  of  an  d,  priori  method  to  com- 
mence with  the  most  abstract  notion  the  mind  can  frame, 
thence  to  proceed  from  the  abstract  to  the  concrete  by  the 
addition  of  attributes,  and  then  to  conclude  that  the  pro- 
cess of  the  universe  is  identical  with  the  process  of  their 
thought,  that  is,  that  all  particular  determinate  being 
emerges  out  of  absolutely  undetermined  being. 

Eeturning  now  to  the  question.  How  can  we  conceive 
of  God  as  a  self-conscious  personality  without  making  Him 
dependent  on  an  outside  world  through  which  He  attains 
self-consciousness?  it  is  obvious  that  this  question  raises 
another.  Is  limitation  by  a  not-self  an  indispensable 
condition  of  self-consciousness  ?  Theists,  with  one  voice, 
reply  in  the  negative.  The  question  has  been  well  handled 
by  Lotze,  who  sums  up  a  most  suggestive  discussion  on 
the  subject  in  these  three  propositions:  1.  Selfhood,  the 
essence  of  all  personality,  rests  not  on  a  positing  of  the  ego 
against  a  non-ego,  but  on  an  immediate  being-for-self  which 
forms  the  ground  of  the  possibility  of  such  a  contraposition. 
2.  In  the  nature  of  the  finite  spirit  lies  the  reason  why  the 
development  of  its  personal  consciousness  can  take  place 
only  through   the    exciting  influence  of  a  non-ego  in  the 


84  APOLOOBnOS. 

form  of  an  outside  world.  It  is  not  because  it  needs  the 
opposition  of  a  foreign  object  in  order  to  be  a  self,  but 
because  in  this  respect,  as  in  all  others,  it  has  not  the 
conditions  of  existence  within  itself.  This  limit  ha&  no 
place  in  the  being  of  the  Infinite  Spirit.  To  EUm  alone, 
therefore,  is  a  being-for-self  possible,  which  needs  neither 
for  its  initiation  nor  for  its  progressive  development  the 
help  of  anything  outside  itself,  but  maintains  itself  in 
eternal  unoriginated  inner  movement.  3.  Complete  per- 
sonality is  only  in  God ;  in  all  finite  spirits  is  only  a  weak 
imitation  thereot  The  finitude  of  the  finite  spirit  is  not 
the  producing  cause  of  personality,  but  rather  a  hindering 
limit  in  the  way  of  its  development.^  In  short,  the  drift 
of  the  reply  given  to  the  deniers  of  the  divine  personality 
by  the  theistic  philosopher  is  this  —  Pantheists  make 
personality  consist  in  that  which  is  really  the  defect  of 
human  personality,  viz.  that  it  needs  an  external  object  to 
help  it  to  self-consciousness,  and  outside  stimuli  to  promote 
its  development.  Our  idea  of  self-consciousness  should  be 
formed,  not  from  its  beginning  and  progress,  but  from  that 
to  which  it  tends,  viz.  ever-increasing  independence  of 
outward  stimuli,  ever-enlarging  fulness  of  contents,  ever- 
growing conquest  over  the  limits  of  space  and  tima  That 
to  which  we  tend,  but  never  reach,  God  has  in  perfection 
and  from  eternity,  a  self- consciousness  absolutely  independent 
of  outside  stimulus,  infinite  in  contents,  and  utterly  un- 
affected by  limits  of  space  and  time.  Hence  it  is  our  own 
personality,  rather  than  God's,  that  we  should  doubt, 
human  personality  being  only  a  very  imperfect  embodiment 
of  an  ideal  which  is  perfectly  realised  in  the  Infinite  and 
Absolute  One. 

The  creation  of  the  world,  viewed  as  involving  a 
beginning  in  time,  is  a  very  difficult  conception.  As 
already  indicated,  it  has  been  doubted  whether  it  be 
necessary  to  the  interests  of  Christian  theism  to  maintain 
that  the  world  had  a  historical  'commencement,^  but  it 
1  Mikrokosmus,  iii.  575  (Eng.  trans,  ii.  679).  *  Vidt  p.  65. 


THE  PAKTHEISTZO  TflBOBT.  86 

eannot  be  questioned  that  this  mode  of  conceiving  creation 
is  more  in  affinity  with  a  theistic  theory  of  the  universe 
than  that  which  conceives  of  the  elements  of  the  world 
as  co-etemal  with,  while  ever  dependent  on,  God.  In 
arguing  with  pantheists,  therefore,  it  is  only  fair  to  accept 
as  part  of  the  theistic  position,  the  idea  of  a  creation  in 
time,  with  all  its  drawbacks.  These  drawbacks  are 
manifest.  It  is  easy  to  ask  puzzling  questions  with 
reference  to  creation  so  conceived :  How  was  God  occupied 
before  He  created  the  world?  Why  did  God  make  a 
world  if  He  could  do  without  one  throughout  eternal 
ages  ?  Supposing  that  question  to  have  been  satisfactorily 
answered  by  Plato  when  he  said,  God  as  the  Good  is  not 
envious,  and  therefore  was  pleased  to  communicate  Him- 
self to  beings  like  Himself,  is  not  the  very  idea  of  an  aim 
injurious  to  the  perfection  of  God,  and  incompatible  with 
the  notion  of  the  absolute,  as  implying  that  while  the  aim 
is  unrealised  God  wants  something  ?  Finally,  does  not 
creation  so  conceived  violate  the  absoluteness  of  God  in 
these  further  respects,  that  it  luakes  Him  subject  to  the 
category  of  Time  in  His  own  being,  inasmuch  as  it  involves 
His  entrance  into  a  new  relationship,  that  of  Lord,  and  that 
it  represents  Him  as  performing  a  particular  act,  whereby  it 
seems  to  degrade  Him  to  the  level  of  a  human  artist  who 
sets  himself  the  task  of  painting  a  particular  picture  at  a 
given  point  of  time  ? 

Pantheism  gets  rid  of  these  troublesome  questions  by 
adopting  as  its  doctrine  that  God  by  necessity  produces 
eternally  all  things  possible.  But  it  escapes  difficulties  in 
one  direction  only  to  encounter  others  not  less  serious  in 
another  direction ;  or  rather,  we  may  say  that  it  covers 
over  the  inherent  difficulties  of  the  question  by  skilfully 
chosen  phrases.  For,  in  the  first  place,  it  gives  really  no 
account  of  the  existence  of  the  universe.  It  is  easy  to  say 
that  God,  by  necessity  of  His  nature,  produces  all  things. 
The  world  is  here,  and  some  account  of  its  existence  must 
be  given,  and  you  may  say  if  you  will  that  it  is  an  eternal 


86  APOLOGETICS. 

necessary  efflux  out  of  the  absolute  substance  or  spirit 
But  what  is  there  in  the  idea  of  the  Absolute  that  would 
lead  you  to  expect  the  existence  of  this  world,  or  of 
any  world  ?  Pantheism  has  no  answer  to  this  question. 
Spinoza  did  not  attempt  to  answer  it.  His  infinite 
substance  is  abstract,  lifeless ;  it  is  the  monotonous, 
characterless  One  into  which  the  realities  of  the  world 
have  been  resolved,  but  how  out  of  this  One  come  the  Many 
he  did  not  even  inquire,  far  less  explain.  Hegel  felt  the 
pressure  of  the  problem,  and  tried  to  solve  it  by  introduc- 
ing into  the  Absolute  a  principle  of  finitude,  self-limitation, 
or  negation,  which  is  supposed  to  give  rise  to  an  eternal 
process  resulting  in  the  manifold  being  which  constitutes 
the  universe.  But  capable  critics  concur  in  the  opinion 
that  Hegel's  explanation  of  the  universe  is  neither  more 
nor  less  than  the  hypostatising  of  a  logical  process,  and 
that  he  has  left  the  problem  of  existence  where  he  found 
it.i 

Pantheism  seems  to  leave  no  place  for  the  existence  of 
a  world  in  which  there  is  progress,  development,  evolution, 
steady  onward  advance  from  lower  to  higher  stages  of 
being,  each  step  in  advance  bringing  into  existence  new 
things.  Such  a  world  is  full  of  incessant  change.  New 
phenomena  are  constantly  appearing — new  effects  of  new 
causes,  or  of  new  combinations  of  existing  causes ;  if  not 
absolutely  new  in  the  sense  that  such  phenomena  always 
may  have  been  in  existence  in  some  part  of  the  universe, 
yet  new  in  this  or  that  part,  say  in  our  own  planet.  Thus 
by  general  consent  of  men  of  science  there  must  have  been 
a  time  in  the  history  of  the  earth  when  there  was  no  life 
in  it,  though  there  may  never  have  been  a  time  when  life 
was  not  to  be  found  anywhere  in  the  universa  Such  a 
world  created  piecemeal,  even  though  the  process  never 
had  a  beginning,  subjects  the  Creator  in  some  sense  to  the 
categories  of  time  and  space,  making  Him  enter  into  new 

*  Among  those  who  hare  criticised  Hegel  to  this  effect  may  be  mentionecl 
Btrauss,  Dorner,  Zeller,  Hartmann. 


THE  PANTHEISTIC   THEORY.  87 

creative  aud  proprietary  relations  in  this  or  tTiat  part  of 
the  creation.  To  escape  this  it  would  be  necessary  to 
invest  the  world  with  God's  unchangeableness,  and  say 
that  all  things  possible  were  always  and  everywhere 
actual.  But  this  would  be  in  effect  to  deny  the  existence 
of  a  world.  Change  is  involved  in  the  idea  of  a  world ; 
a  world  without  change  is  either  a  nonentity  or  it  is  God 
under  another  name.  The  actual  world  is  undeniably  a 
world  full  of  change,  and  with  reference  to  God's  relation 
to  it  we  must  choose  between  two  alternatives:  either  to 
save  His  absoluteness  we  must  assert  that  He  stands  in 
no  relation  whatever  to  the  world,  whether  as  creator  or 
as  preserver ;  or  we  must  admit  that  His  eternal  being  is 
somehow  reconcilable  with  change,*  that  without  prejudice 
to  His  absoluteness  He  can,  as  Hebrew  prophets  teach, 
create  new  things — living  beings,  thinking  men — at  a 
given  time,  in  a  given  part  of  the  world.  The  admission 
covers  the  theistic  idea  of  creation  in  time,  at  least  in 
detail;  and  there  seems  to  be  no  cogent  reason  why  it 
should  not  cover  the  idea  of  a  historical  commencement 
of  the  world  as  a  whole.  If  life  or  man  may  begin  to  be, 
why  not  a  universe  ? 

It  thus  appears  that  even  on  its  speculative  side  the 
pantheistic  theory  is  not  so  invulnerable  as  at  first  view  it 
may  seem.  But  it  is  on  the  moral  side  that  its  weakness 
is  most  easily  discerned.  Questions  concerning  the  Divine 
Being  and  His  relations  to  the  universe  are  abstruse,  but 
on  such  as  refer  to  man,  his  nature  and  destiny,  we  are 
able  to  form  more  definite  views,  and  to  pronounce  more 
confident  judgments.     And  no  one  who  in  any  measure 

^  Hartmann  denies  that  simplicity  and  unchangeableness  are  attributes  ot 
Qod,  doing  so  in  the  name  of  what  he  calls  concrete  monism,  which  he  dis- 
tingniBhes  from  abstract  monism  in  this  wise.  Abstract  monism  makes  the 
Many,  as  simple  appearance,  lose  itself  in  the  abstract  Unity.  Concrete 
monism,  on  the  other  hand,  recognises  the  reality  and  independence  of 
the  existing  Concrete  over  against  the  Unity  of  being.  According  to  hia 
new  the  dogma  of  divine  unchangeableness  belongs  to  abitrast  moniaB. 
Vide  Die  Krigie  de*  ChristetUhumt,  pp.  88,  92. 


88  APOLOOETIOa. 

sympatliises  with  the  teaching  and  spirit  of  Christ  can 
hesitate  what  to  think  of  pantheistic  views  on  these  topics. 
Pantheistic  anthropology  is  at  all  points  antagonistic  to 
Christian  thought  First,  in  its  general  conception  of  man's 
place  in  the  world.  Pantheism  in  all  its  forms  degrades 
man.  It  may  seem  as  if  we  ought  to  except  from  this 
statement  that  fascinating  type  which  makes  man  the 
medium  through  which  the  absolute  spirit  attains  to  self- 
consciousness.  But  even  on  this  view  the  individual  man 
is  only  a  shadowy,  fleeting  phenomenon,  a  mere  temporary 
apparition,  manifestation,  and  individualisation  of  the  great 
impersonal  spirit  of  nature.  Neither  God  nor  man  pos- 
sesses stable  personality.  The  soul  of  the  world  attains  to 
reality  and  self-consciousness  only  in  the  single  souls  of 
men ;  man,  on  the  other  hand,  has  no  being-for-self,  but  is 
merely  a  medium  of  divine  self-manifestation  and  self- 
consciousness,  used  for  a  season,  then  dispensed  with. 
Whence  it  appears  that  the  personality  of  God  and  that  of 
man  stand  and  fall  together.  Each  is  the  guarantee  of  the 
other,  and  the  denial  of  either  is  the  destruction  of  both. 
Admit  the  independent  personality  of  God,  then  man  can 
be  recognised  as  a  distinct,  though  finite  and  subordinate 
personality.  Deny  the  personality  of  God,  except  in  so 
far  as  it  is  realised  in  man,  then  individual  men  are 
degraded  into  the  position  of  mere  temporary  instruments, 
and  only  the  human  race,  if  even  it,  possesses  abiding 
significance. 

The  fatal  bearing  of  the  pantheistic  theory  on  the  moral 
nature  of  man  is  made  very  apparent  by  the  frank  utter- 
ances of  Spinoza.  For  him  human  freedom  is  a  dream, 
moral  distinctions  purely  relative,  and  good  and  bad  men 
alike  entitled  to  recognition  as  constituent  parts  of  a 
universe  in  which  all  that  is  real  is  perfect.  Human 
actions  of  whatever  nature  are  subject  to  the  inexorable 
law  of  causality,  and  all  alike  tend  to  one  goaL  Evil  and 
good  from  the  divine  point  of  view,  regarded  sub  specie 
cetemitatis,  are  one ;  error,  sin,  wickedness  are  words  that 


TBE  PANTHEISTIC  THBO&Y.  89 

have  no  absolute  significance,  but  merely  denote  things 
that  are  evil  relatively  to  our  present  feeling,  comfort,  and 
convenience.  In  the  great  system  of  the  universe  they  are 
but  the  discords  in  the  divine  music  of  the  spheres,  which 
resolve  into  concords,  and  make  these  by  contrast  more 
exquisite  to  the  ear. 

From  the  pantheistic  point  of  view,  the  hope  of  indi- 
vidual immortality  is  a  delusion,  Strauss  acted  as  the 
spokesman  of  the  system  when  he  wrote  these  remarkable 
words :  "  The  Beyond  is  the  one  in  all,  but  in  the  form  of 
a  future  it  is  the  last  enemy  which  speculative  criticism 
has  to  fight  with,  and  if  possible  to  overcome."  ^  It  is  the 
utterance  of  an  ex-pantheist  gone  over  to  the  ranks  of 
materialism,  but  it  none  the  less  expresses  the  genuine 
thought  of  pantheism  on  the  subject  of  immortality.  While 
recognising  an  eternal  within  the  temporal,  it  mocks  at 
the  idea  of  a  life  that  survives  death,  and  declares  that 
with  the  last  breath  individual  existence  ends.  The  finite 
spirit  then  loses  itself  in  the  infinite,  like  a  burst  bubble 
in  the  stream. 

Against  these  views  it  is  unnecessary  to  argue,  the  onlj 
question  to  be  considered  is  whether  they  be  truly  charac- 
teristic of  the  theory  under  discussion.  If  they  be,  then 
pantheism  is  self-condemned  for  all  who  belong  to  the 
school  of  Jesus,  or  even  to  the  school  of  Kant,  who  built 
his  faith  in  God  and  in  immortality  on  human  freedom, 
and  on  the  absolute  validity  of  moral  distinctions. 

It  has  already  been  acknowledged  that  pantheism  pos- 
sesses powerful  attractions  for  our  religious  nature  in  its 
doctrine  of  divine  immanence  (of  which,  however,  it  has  no 
monopoly,  for  that  God  is  immanent  in  the  world  is  the 
belief  of  every  intelligent  theist).  Nevertheless,  the  deity 
of  pantheism  is  too  vague,  shadowy,  and  intangible  to  be 
a  satisfactory  object  of  worship.     The  human  heart  craves 

*  Olaubenslehre,  ii.  789.  For  an  instructive  discussion  on  the  bearings  of 
Hegelianism  on  the  question  of  individual  immortality,  vide  Strauss's 
Christian  MarMin,  ein  Lebens-  und  Charakterbild  aua  der  Oegenwart,  1851, 


90  APOLOGETICS. 

a  more  comprehensible,  definite,  and  congenial  object  of 
religious  devotion  than  the  universal  substance  of  Spinoza, 
or  the  Urgeist  of  Hegel,  or  the  moral  order  of  the  world 
with  which  Fichte  identified  the  divine  being.  Hence, 
wherever  the  pantheistic  theory  is  accepted,  polytheism,  in 
a  more  or  less  refined  form,  prevails.  The  One  in  All  for 
practical  religious  purposes  breaks  up  into  the  Many ;  the 
modes  of  the  Absolute  take  the  place  of  the  Absolute  itself 
as  objects  of  worship  ;  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  birds,  beasts, 
and  creeping  things,  in  ruder  times ;  the  beautiful  in  nature, 
as  reproduced  by  art,  and  genius  in  man,  as  expressed  in 
literature,  iu  highly  cultured  epocha 


CHAPTEB  rV. 

THE  MATSBIAUSTIO  THEOBT. 

LiTKKATUKE. — Cudworth,  True  Intellectual  System  of  the 
Universe;  Lange,  Geschichte  des  Materialismv^,  2te  Aufl.  1873 ; 
Lotze,  MikrokosmAis  (translated  by  T.  &  T.  Clark,  Edinburgh) ; 
Strauss,  Der  alte  und  der  neue  Glauhe,  1874 ;  Ulrici,  Gott  und 
die  Natur,  1866 ;  Du  Bois-Reymond,  Ueber  die  Grenzen  des 
Naturerkennens ;  Die SiebenWeltrdthsel,  1872, 1880 (published 
together  1891);  Bain,  Mind  and  Body;  Clifford,  Lecture* 
and  Essays,  1879;  Havelock  Ellis,  The  Criminal,  1890; 
Flint,  Antitheistic  Theories  ;  Martineau,  Essays,  Bevieivs,  and 
Addresses,  1891  (two  on  Modem  Materialism  in  Relation  to 
Religion  and  Theology) ;  Le  Conte,  Evolution  and  its  Bela- 
tion  to  Beligioug  Thought,  2nd  ed.  1891. 

Superficially  viewed,  the  materialistic  mode  of  contem- 
plating the  universe  differs  widely  from  the  pantheistic 
In  Spinoza's  system  thought  and  extension  are  two  inde- 
pendent attributes  of  the  eternal  and  infinite  Substance, 
standing  in  no  causal  relation  to  each  other.  According 
to  the  materialistic  theory,  on  the  contrary,  thought  is  a 
function  of  the  brain  and  a  mere  mode  of  motion.  In  modem 
forms  of  pantheism  the  contrast  to  materialism   ia  even 


THE   MATERIALISTIC   THEORY.  91 

more  striking.  The  Absolute  therein  appears  not  as  sub- 
stance, but  as  spirit,  the  material  world  being  its  negation, 
and  the  end  of  the  whole  world-process  is  declared  to  be 
the  manifestation  of  spirit.  Notwithstanding  this  super- 
ficial difference,  however,  the  two  systems  are  closely 
allied.  For  both  the  world,  nature,  is  the  great  reality, 
and  God  and  the  human  soul  the  shadowy  and  insubstan- 
tial. To  the  pantheist  the  physical  universe  is  the  reality 
of  God ;  to  the  materialist  it  is  the  reality  without  God. 
God  for  the  one  is  an  idea,  an  abstraction  apart  from 
nature,  and  man  a  development  out  of  nature ;  for  the 
other  God  is  a  nonentity,  a  word  without  meaning,  and 
man  a  curiously-organised  piece  of  matter  characterised  by 
some  very  remarkable  and  not  easily  explicable  properties. 
Materialism  is  the  most  thoroughgoing  and  the  most 
formidable  opponent  of  the  Christian  theory  of  the  universe. 
It  is  the  foe  which  is  at  present  in  the  ascendant.  It  owes 
its  prevalence  to  various  causes.  In  Germany,  in  recent 
years,  a  spirit  of  reaction  against  an  extravagant  idealism 
has  been  at  work,  which  has  issued  in  the  rapid  spread  of 
materialistic  tendencies.  But  doubtless  the  main  cause  has 
been  the  signal  progress  of  physical  science  within  the 
present  generation.  The  physical  sciences  are  not,  indeed, 
to  be  confounded  with  materialism.  The  aim  of  these 
sciences  is  not  to  propound  a  speculative  theory  of  the  uni- 
verse, but  simply  to  make  us  as  fully  acquainted  as  possible 
with  the  universe  as  it  actually  exists ;  with  the  properties 
and  relations  of  the  elements  of  which  it  is  composed.  It 
has  indeed  been  said  that  it  is  the  interest  of  science  that 
there  should  be  no  God,^  but  that  is  true  only  in  the  sense 

*  So  Jaoobi,  Werht,  Band  III.  pp.  884-6.  "  It  is  therefore  the  interut  of 
science  that  there  be  no  God,  no  supernatural,  eztramnndane,  snpnmun- 
dane  Being.  Only  under  this  condition,  viz.  that  nature  alone  eXJata,  as 
independent  and  all  in  all,  can  science  reach  the  goal  of  perfection  and 
flatter  itself  that  it  can  become  like  its  object  all  in  all."  Commenting  on 
this  statement  in  another  place,  Jacobi  remarks  that  the  science  wh  ich  has 
this  interest  is  different  from  the  true  science  which  has  an  entirely  ttpposit* 
interest.     Vide  Werk*,  !▼.,  Erste  Abth.,  Yorberioht,  pp.  zzriL  zxyid. 


92  APOLOGETIOa 

that  science  cannot  allow  the  heing  of  God  to  pnt  an  anest 

on  its  endeavours  to  ascertain  the  causes  of  existing 
phenomena,  or  to  interdict  the  carrying  of  its  inquiries  as 
far  back  as  possible.  If,  for  example,  it  thinks  it  can 
account  for  the  appearance  of  design  in  nature  without 
postulating  a  designer,  it  declines  to  regard  it  as  a  good 
reason  for  foregoing  the  attempt  that  theologians  will 
thereby  be  deprived  of  a  favourite  argument  for  the  being 
of  God.  If,  again,  science  thinks  it  can  establish  a  doctrine 
of  evolution,  according  to  which  all  existing  forms  of  life 
have  arisen  by  a  slow  secular  process  out  of  a  few  prim- 
ordial living  germs,  it  refuses  to  be  stopped  in  its  course 
by  the  consideration  that  the  establishment  of  such  a 
doctrine  would  leave  the  Creator  so  little  to  do  as  to 
suggest  the  thought  that  He  might  be  dispensed  with 
altogether.  The  scientific  man  might  meet  such  objections 
by  the  reply :  "  If  God  be  put  into  a  corner  I  cannot  help  it 
Nay,  if  He  should  be  shut  out  of  the  universe  altogether,  I 
still  cannot  help  it.  I  have  no  wish  to  do  so :  the  motive 
of  my  scientific  labour  is  not  a  desire  to  carry  on  a  crusade 
against  the  existence  of  God.  But  as  little  is  it  my  busi- 
ness to  protect  that  existence  from  periL  I  must  go  on 
my  own  course  of  inquiry,  and  leave  the  divine  existence 
to  look  after  itself."  * 

Modern  science  prosecuted  in  this  spirit  of  stony 
indifference  to  theological  interests,  or  to  any  interest 
whatever  but  the  ascertainment  of  truth,  has  established 
many  doctrines,  and  thrown  out  not  a  few  hypotheses, 
which  have  given  much  comfort  to  the  heart  of  the 
materialist,  and  inspired  him  with  great  confidence  in 
asserting  that  his  theory  of  the  universe  may  now  be 
regarded  as  conclusively  proved.     Hence  materialism  has 

*  On  the  bearing  of  evolution  on  theism,  Le  Conte  remarks:  "To  the 
deep  thinker  now  and  always  there  is  and  has  been  the  alternative — materi- 
aliani  or  theism.  God  operates  Nature  or  Nature  operates  itself ;  but  evolu* 
tion  puts  no  new  phase  on  this  old  question." — Evolution  and  it»  HeltUion  (• 
Religious  Thought,  p.  289,  2nd  ed. 


THB   MATERIALISTIC   THEORY.  08 

been  mnoh  in  vogue  of  late,  and  has  won  over  to  Its  ranks 
many  ardent  supporters  who  have  devoted  themselves  to 
its  exposition  and  defence,  using  for  this  purpope  all  the 
materials  lying  ready  to  their  hands  in  scientific  treatisea 
Germany  has  been  specially  prolific  in  materialistic  litera- 
ture. In  that  land  of  thinkers  every  theory  has  its  turn, 
and  every  subject  which  engages  attention  is  gone  into 
with  characteristic  thoroughness  and  unreserve.  In  English- 
speaking  countries  men  are  not  supremely  interested  in 
speculative  theories,  but  give  themselves,  by  preference,  to 
patient  prosecution  of  special  lines  of  inquiry,  and  if  the 
results  arrived  at  are,  from  the  theological  point  of  view, 
questionable  or  suspicious,  such  aspects  of  the  matter 
under  consideration  are  either  quietly  ignored,  or  only 
noticed  by  a  passing  word.  But  in  Germany  the  bearing 
of  any  particular  scientific  discovery  on  the  theory  of  the 
universe  is  for  many  the  thing  of  predominant  interest,  and 
what  the  Englishman  passes  over  in  discreet  silence  the 
German  proclaims  from  the  house-top.  Hence  the  land  of 
idealism  has  taken  the  lead  also  in  a  materialistic  propa- 
gandism,  which  has  given  birth  to  many  publications  of 
various  merit,  including  an  elaborate  history  of  materialism 
from  the  earliest  times  till  now.* 

In  view  of  that  history,  and  of  the  many  phases  of 
opinion  it  reveals,  in  view  also  of  the  extent  to  which 
the  story  of  modern  materialism  is  interwoven  with  that  of 
recent  scientific  discovery,  it  seems  vain  to  attempt  a  state- 
ment and  criticism  of  the  materialistic  theory  of  the  universe 
within  the  compass  of  a  single  chapter.  Yet  let  us  hope 
that  the  task  may  not  prove  so  hard  as  at  first  it  looks. 

What  then  is  the  materialistic  theory  ?  Briefly  and 
roughly  it  is  this :  that  to  account  for  all  the  phenomena 
of  nature,  including  those  of  life,  animal  and  vegetable,  and 
of  thought,  nothing  more  is  needed  than  matter  and  its 
properties.  Matter  and  force  have  built  up  the  universe, 
the  former  being  the  stuff  out  of  which  the  structure  haa 

*  LangOf  Cktchiehte  des  MatericUimma, 


94  ^  APOLOGBnCS. 

been  raised,  the  latter  the  architect  by  whose  nnconscioiu 
skill  it  has  been  shaped  into  a  cosmos.  The  world-process 
is  throughout  an  affair  of  mechanism.  The  substitute  for 
God  in  this  theory  is  the  hyle,  matter  in  its  original  element- 
ary state,  conceived  of  as  existing  from  eternity,  and  con- 
sisting of  an  infinite  number  of  atoms  moving  about  in 
empty  space.  By  this  conception  of  matter  as  eternal  the 
need  for  a  Creator  is  excluded.  Equally  unnecessary, 
according  to  the  materialist,  is  a  Divine  Being  at  all  stages 
of  the  process  by  which  the  world  arose  out  of  the  eternal 
atoms.  Not  even  at  those  critical  points  in  the  world- 
process,  when  life,  feeling,  and  thought  first  appeared,  is  it 
necessary  to  postulate  more  than  matter  and  the  properties 
it  possessed  before  these  remarkable  phenomena  appeared, 
in  order  to  account  for  them  sufficiently. 

The  consistent  maintenance  of  this  theory  would  seem 
to  require  no  small  measure  of  audacity,  a  quality  in  which, 
it  must  be  acknowledged,  the  materialist  has  never  been 
lacking.  The  origin  of  life,  even  in  its  most  elementary  form, 
might  well  appear  a  crux  to  any  modest  theorist  desirous 
to  ascertain  how  far  lifeless  matter  and  its  properties  will 
carry  us  in  the  explanation  of  the  world.  For  the  testi- 
mony of  experimental  science  is  decidedly  against  spon- 
taneous generation, — that  is,  the  appearance  of  life  where 
there  is  no  reason  to  suspect  the  presence  of  living  germa 
antecedently  existing.  Yet,  in  spite  of  that  testimony, 
modern  materialists,  with  one  consent,  refuse  to  regard  the 
origin  of  life  in  a  world  in  which  the  phenomenon  of  life 
had  not  previously  appeared  as  a  crisis  demanding  the 
supernatural  interposition  of  a  Creator.  They  assume  the 
conceivability  of  the  world,  its  explicability  by  natural 
causes,  throughout,  as  an  axiom,  and  therefore  they  look 
on  the  origin  of  organisms  out  of  dead  matter  as  possible 
and  certain,  whether  such  an  event  fall  within  our 
present  experience  or  not.  Life  must  have  so  arisen  in 
our  planet,  for  it  is  here  now,  and  yet  it  is  certain  that 
there  once  was  a  time  when  no  life  could  have  existed  on 


THR   MATERIALISTIC  THEORY.  95 

the  earth  We  may  not  yet  be  able  to  explain  the  process, 
or  to  specify  the  conditions  under  which  atoms  of  carbon, 
hydrogen,  oxygen,  and  nitrogen  combine  so  as  to  yield  the 
wondrous  phenomenon  we  call  life.  But  we  ought  not  to 
despair  of  one  day  discovering  the  secret,  but  simply  to 
regard  it  as  "  a  very  difficult  mechanical  problem."  ^  The 
common  faith  of  materialists  in  reference  to  the  origin  of 
life  is  expressed  by  a  well-known  scientific  expert  in  these 
explicit  terms : — 

"  If  it  were  given  me  to  look  beyond  the  abyss  of  geoloo;i- 
cally-recorded  time  to  the  still  more  remote  period  when  the 
earth  was  passing  through  physical  and  chemical  conditions, 
which  it  can  no  more  see  again  than  a  man  can  recall  his 
infancy,  I  should  expect  to  be  a  witness  of  the  evolution  of 
living  protoplasm  from  not  living  matter.  I  should  expect 
to  see  it  appear  under  forms  of  great  simplicity,  endowed, 
like  existing  fungi,  with  the  power  of  determining  the  forma- 
tion of  new  protoplasm  from  such  matters  as  ammonium 
carbonates,  oxalates  and  tartrates,  alkaline  and  earthy  phos- 
phates, and  water,  without  the  aid  of  light."  * 

Life  once  introduced,  no  crucial  difficulty  emerges  for 
the  theorist  who  undertakes  to  account  for  all  things  by 
matter  and  its  properties,  by  atoms  and  their  motions,  till 
in  the  onward  course  of  evolution  the  marvellous  phenomena 
of  feeling,  consciousness,  thought  make  their  appearance. 
Apart  from  these  perplexing  mysteries,  the  materialist,  by 
aid  of  Darwin's  theory,  can  explain  the  boundless  world  of 
living  beings,  with  its  infinite  variety  of  species,  from  the 

*  The  expression  in  quoted  from  Du  Bois-Reymond.  In  his  Vortrag, 
Ceber  die  Orenzen  de«  Naturerkennens,  p.  31,  this  eminent  man  of  science 
•ays  :  "  It  is  a  mistake  to  see  in  the  first  appearance  of  living  beings  upon 
earth  or  on  another  planet  anything  supernatural,  anything  else  than  a  very 
difficult  mechanical  problem  "(ein  uberaus  schwieriges  mtchaniscli.es  Piobltm). 
This  Vortrag  is  published  along  with  another,  Die  Sieben  Weltrdtlisd. 
Among  the  seven  riddles  of  the  world  Du  Bois-Reymond  includes  the  origin 
of  life,  but  he  does  not  regard  it  as,  like  the  nature  of  matter,  or  the  origin 
of  feeling,  "transcendent,"  i.e.  absolutely  insoluble. 

■  Huxley,  Critiques  and  Addresses,  p.  239.  Similar  views  are  expiessod 
by  Fiske,  ChUlinea  of  Cosmic  Philosophy f  L  430-4. 


96  APOLOGETICS. 

lowest  forms  of  vegetable  and  animal  life  to  the  highest 
and  latest  achievement  of  the  evolutionary  process,  the 
animal  that  can  speak  and  think  called  man.  Corporeal 
life  in  all  its  phases  may  be  resolved  into  mechanics ;  but 
consciotis  life,  is  that  not  a  puzzle  ?  Feeling,  even  in  its 
most  rudimentary  manifestations,  still  more  as  a  phenomenon 
in  the  vast  world  of  mind  opened  up  to  view  in  the  human 
species,  can  it  be  explained  by  the  movements  of  atoms  ? 
Surely  materialists  will  hesitate  to  answer  this  question  in 
the  affirmative  ?  Some  do,  but  not  alL  With  character- 
istic boldness,  some  of  the  most  prominent  advocates  of  the 
theory  under  consideration  maintain  that  feeling  and 
thought  are  modes  of  motion.  "  Thought,"  says  one,  "  ia 
a  motion,  a  translocation  of  the  cerebral  substance ;  think- 
ing is  a  necessary  and  inseparable  property  of  the  brain ;  ** 
and  "  consciousness  itself  is  but  an  attribute  of  matter."  * 
Another  asks,  "  What  stronger  proof  for  the  necessary 
connection  of  soul  and  brain  can  one  desire  than  that 
which  the  knife  of  the  anatomist  yields  when  it  cuts  the 
soul  to  pieces  ? "  *  A  third  expresses  himself  in  this 
cynical  fashion:  "Every  student  of  nature  must,  if  he 
think  at  all  consistently,  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  all 
those  capacities  which  we  comprehend  under  the  name  of 
the  soul's  activities  are  only  functions  of  the  brain  sub- 
stance ;  or,  to  express  myself  here  somewhat  coarsely,  that 
thought  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  the  brain  as  the 
gall  to  the  liver  or  the  urine  to  the  kidneys."  • 

Other  writers,  materialistic  in  tendency,  shrink  from 
such  positions,  and  frankly  acknowledge  that  mental  states 
are  not  explicable  in  terms  of  motion ;  that  the  phenomena 
of  thought  and  feeling  are  separated  by  an  impassable  gulf 

*  Moleschott,  Der  Kreislauf  des  Lebens,  pp.  489,  448. 
»  Biicliner,  Kraft  und  Staff,  6te  Aufl.  p.  118. 

•  Vogt,  Physiologische  BrUft  fur  Oebildete  aUer  Stande,  f.  108  j  Kdhltr- 
glavbe  und  Wissenschaft,  p.  82.  The  blunt  declaration  above  qnoted  created 
»  great  eenBation.  Da  Boia-Reymond,  in  his  paper  on  the  "Limits  to  oar 
Knowledge  of  Natore,"  states  that  it  gave  riie  in  the  fifties  to  •  sort  ik 
tournament  about  the  soul  (pi.  49). 


THE   MATERIALISTIC   THEORY.  97 

from,  while  intimately  connected  with,  movements  in  the 
brain  and  nervous  system.  They  even  afifect  to  treat  such 
utterances  as  those  above  quoted  as  mere  extravagances  not 
demanded  by  the  system.  But  it  is  by  no  means  certain 
that  the  views  of  the  moderate  and  cautious  materialist  are 
the  more  consistent  with  the  theory.  The  urine-simUe  may 
be  offensive  in  expression,  but  it  is  in  essence  true  to  the 
materialistic  mode  of  viewing  the  world.  Is  it  not  the 
very  rationale  of  materialism  to  resolve  the  phenomena  of 
mind  into  phenomena  of  matter  ?  On  this  point  the  most 
competent  judges  are  agreed.  Thus  Lotze  says  that 
materialism  consists  in  explaining  psychical  by  physical 
states,  thought  by  motion.^  And  Lange,  the  historian  of 
materialism,  represents  Strauss  as  a  correct  exponent  of 
materialism.'  Yet  Strauss,  recognised  by  many  of  his 
countrymen  as  the  father  of  modern  materialism,  treats  the 
relation  of  thought  to  motion  as  a  question  of  the  conserva- 
tion of  force,  as  the  following  passage  will  show : — 

"  It  is  not  long  since  the  law  of  the  conservation  of  force 
was  discovered,  and  it  will  take  long  to  clear  up  and  define 
its  application  to  the  conversion  of  heat  into  motion  and  of 
motion  into  heat.  But  the  time  cannot  be  far  ofif  when  they 
will  begin  to  make  application  of  the  law  to  the  problem  of 
feeling  and  thinking.  If  under  certain  conditions  motion 
changes  itself  into  heat,  why  should  there  not  also  be  con- 
ditions under  which  it  changes  itself  into  sensation  ?  The 
conditions,  the  apparatus  for  the  purpose,  we  have  in  the 
brain  and  nervous  system  of  the  higher  animals,  and  in  those 
organs  of  the  lower  animals  which  take  their  place.  On  the 
one  side  the  nerve  is  touched  and  set  into  internal  movement, 
on  the  other  a  feeling,  a  perception,  takes  pla©«,  a  thought 
arises ;  and  inversely  the  feeling  and  the  thought  on  the  way 
outward  translate  themselves  into  motion  of  the  members. 
When  Helmholtz  says:  in  the  generation  of  heat  through 
rubbing  and  pushing  the  motion  of  the  whole  mass  passes 
over  into  a  motion  of  its  smallest  parts;  inversely  in  the 
production  of  driving  power  through  heat  the  motion  of  the 

*  Mihrohosmui,  i.  168. 

*  QtHhichU  de»  Materialimwa,  IL  6l|k 

a 


98  APOLOGETICS. 

smallest  parts  passes  over  into  a  motion  of  the  whole  mass — 
I  ask :  is  this  anything  essentially  different ;  is  the  above 
account  of  the  connection  between  the  movement  of  the  body 
and  the  thought  of  the  mind  not  the  necessary  continuation 
of  that  law  ?  One  may  say  I  speak  of  things  I  do  not  under- 
stand. Good,  but  others  will  come  who  do  understand,  and 
who  have  also  understood  me."  * 

Strauss  was  not  in  the  technical  sense  a  man  of  science, 
but  few  are  better  able  to  judge  what  belongs  to  a  con- 
nected system  of  theoretic  thought.  Those  who  hesitate  to 
apply  to  feeling  and  thought  the  law  of  the  conservation  of 
force  may  be  wiser  men  than  he,  but  they  are  less  con- 
sistent materialists.  It  is  as  incumbent  on  materialism  to 
maintain  that  thought  or  consciousness  is  a  mode  of  motion 
as  it  is  to  maintain  that  life  in  its  primordial  forms  origin- 
ated in  lifeless  matter.*  All  attempts  to  formulate  a 
materialistic  doctrine  without  accepting  the  former  of  these 
two  positions  amount  to  a  virtual  abandonment  of  the 
theory.  Among  these  falls  to  be  classed  the  conception 
of  psychical  and  physical  phenomena  as  the  attributes  of 
"  one  substance,  with  two  sets  of  properties,  two  sides,  the 
physical  and  the  mental,  a  double-faced  unity  "* — a  modem 
reproduction  of  Spinoza's  thought.  Another  favourite  way 
of  meeting  the  difficulty  is  to  introduce  into  the  component 
elements  of  matter  the  attributes  of  mind — not  merely  life, 
after  the  manner  of  the  ancient  hylozoists,*  but  conscious- 
ness, feeling,  "  mind-stufif."  *  Of  course  it  is  easy  to  bring 
out  of  matter  what  you  have  once  put  into  it,  and  to  find 
in  it  so  endowed  the  "  promise  and  potency  "  of  the  highest 

'  Der  alte  und  der  neue  Olaube,  p.  211. 

'  Lange  remarks  that  the  special  case  of  the  motions  named  rational  mnst 
be  explained  from  the  general  laws  of  all  motion,  elae  nothing  ii  explained. 
Oeschichte,  i.  20. 

*  Bain,  Mind  and  Body,  p.  196. 

*  On  the  views  of  the  hylozoic  atheists  or  corporealists,  as  represented  by 
Strabo  Lampsacenns,  vide  Ondworth'a  Tru$  Intellectual  Syttem  qf  the 
Universe,  i.  237-41. 

"  Clifford,  Lectures  and  Mtm^t,  \L  Si.  "  Misd-rtoff  is  the  trniiMf  which 
ve  pereoire  as  mattu." 


THE   MATERIALISTIC   THEORY.  99 

spiritual  life.  But  to  ascribe  to  matter  feeling  and  thought 
is  to  aliandon  rather  than  to  defend  materialism.  A  third 
conceivable  method  of  making  the  problem  easy  would  be 
to  deny,  if  that  were  possible,  the  existence  of  psychical 
states,  at  least  as  phenomena  demanding  scientific  explana- 
tion. This  device  seems  to  be  hinted  at  in  these  sentences 
of  Lange :  "  Feeling  is  not  another  member  of  the  chain  of 
organic  changes,  but,  as  it  were,  the  consideration  of  any 
one  of  these  from  another  side.  We  come  here  upon  a 
limit  of  materialism,  but  only  because  we  carry  it  through 
with  the  strictest  consequence.  We  are  of  the  opinion  that 
in  feeling  outside  and  beside  the  nerve-processes  there  is 
hardly  anything  to  seek ;  only  these  processes  themselves 
have  a  wholly  different  mode  of  manifestation,  viz.  that 
which  the  individual  calls  feeling."  ^  It  seems  scarcely  worth 
while  to  formulate  such  a  statement  unless  one  can  dispense 
with  such  qualifying  phrases  as  "  hardly  "  and  "  as  it  were." 
Such,  in  brief,  is  the  physical  aspect  of  materialism. 
Turning  now  to  the  ethical  side  of  the  theory,  it  is  unneces- 
sary to  say  that  of  course  the  materialist  repudiates  all 
belief  in  human  freedom.  Men,  in  his  view,  are  what  Des- 
cartes held  the  lower  animals  to  be,  automata,  only  not 
unconscious  ones,  and  not  without  an  idea  that  they  are 
voluntary  agents.  "  We  are,"  writes  Mr.  Huxley,  "  con- 
scious automata,  endowed  with  free  will  in  the  only 
intelligible  sense  of  this  much-abused  term,  inasmuch  as 
in  many  respects  we  are  able  to  do  as  we  like ;  but,  none 
the  less,  parts  of  the  great  series  of  causes  and  effects 
which,  in  unbroken  continuity,  composes  that  which  is,  and 
has  been,  and  shall  be,  the  sum  of  existence."*  The  con- 
cession here  made  to  free  will  does  not  amount  to  much ; 
for  the  likings  of  men  are  the  result  of  causes  over  which 
they  have  no  control.  We  do  what  we  like,  and  we  like 
what  we  must  In  proof  of  the  illusory  charactei  of 
human  freedom,  materialists  appeal  to  the  results  of  the 

>  Oeaehichte  dea  MaUrialiamua,  p.  874. 

'  Sdoice  and  Culture,  and  other  E«aay$,  pp.  S88,  SM. 


100  APOLOGETICS. 

modem   science   of  statistics,  according   to  which   it   is 

approximately  determinable  how  many  out  of  a  given 
number  of  men  will  commit  crimes  in  a  year,  and  even 
what  will  be  the  percentage  for  each  species  of  crime,  and 
for  the  mode  in  which  it  wiU  be  committed.  It  is  held 
that  it  would  be  impossible  to  frame  such  formulae  unless 
there  were  physical  causes  at  work  determining  the  actions 
of  men  with  as  much  certainty  as  the  occurrence  of  eclipses. 

There  is  no  charge  to  which  materialism  seems  more 
justly  liable  than  that  it  renders  anything  like  a  fixed  code 
of  morals  impossible.  The  logic  of  a  system  which  denies 
freedom  and  regards  human  action  as  the  product  of  causes 
over  which  the  actor  has  no  control,  appears  to  justify  the 
conclusion  that  all  actions  are  equally  right  or  legitimate, 
those  of  the  man  who  is  the  slave  of  animal  passion  not 
less  than  those  of  the  man  who  obeys  reason  and  lives  a 
sober,  benevolent  life.  Conduct  is  the  necessary  result  of 
nature,  and  as  is  the  nature  so  will  be  the  quality  of  the 
conduct.  In  one  case  the  quality  may  be  higher  than  in 
another,  but  that  constitutes  no  ground  for  condemning  the 
man  whose  conduct  is  judged  to  be  inferior,  for  it  is  as 
reasonable  as  it  is  inevitable  that  nature  varying  conduct 
should  vary  accordingly. 

The  materialists  of  last  century  were  not  at  all  concerned 
to  deny  this  consequence  of  their  system,  but  frankly 
acknowledged  that  morality  was  a  purely  personal  afifair, 
and  that  the  only  rule  of  conduct  that  could  be  laid  down 
was :  Every  man  to  his  taste.  Every  man,  it  was  argued, 
desires  to  be  happy,  but  no  man  can  be  happy  at  the 
bidding  of  another;  therefore  let  every  man  pursue  the 
common  aim  in  his  own  way.  If  one  think  he  can  best 
reach  the  goal  by  what  is  called  virtue,  let  him  do  so  by 
all  means.  If  another  think  he  can  attain  happiness  by  a 
life  of  libertinage,  he  has  an  equal  right  to  follow  his  bent 
If  a  third  has  come  to  feel  that  happiness  is  no  longer 
possible  to  him  on  any  terms,  he  may,  if  he  pleases,  hang 
himself.     In   the  spirit  of   such   free  and  easy  morality 


THE   MATERIALISTIC  THEORY.  101 

Hume  defended  suicide.  "  A  hair,  a  fly,  an  insect,  is  able 
to  destroy  this  mighty  being  whose  life  is  of  such  import- 
ance. Is  it  an  absurdity  to  suppose  that  human  prudence 
may  lawfully  dispose  of  what  depends  on  such  insignificant 
causes  ?  It  would  be  no  crime  in  me  to  divert  the  Nile 
or  Danube  from  its  course,  were  I  able  to  efifect  such  pur- 
poses. Where,  then,  is  the  crime  of  turning  a  few  ounces 
of  blood  from  their  natural  channel  ?  "  *  Even  eighteenth 
century  materialism  might  have  something  to  say  by  way 
of  reply  to  this  cynical  argument  for  the  right  of  the 
individual  to  do  with  his  life  as  he  pleased-  It  might 
mildly  suggest  that  every  man  owed  something  to  others, 
to  his  family,  to  his  friends,  to  the  state.  It  might  go  so 
far  as  to  lay  down  the  rule :  the  interest  of  the  state  the 
supreme  law  for  the  individual  But  how  uncertain  the 
code  of  morals  based  on  this  principle  might  be,  we  may 
learn  from  Helvetius,  who  argued  in  favour  of  libertinage 
as  useful  to  France,  and  reminded  purists  that  it  was  to  the 
mud  of  the  Nile  that  Egypt  owed  its  fertility.* 

Some  modern  materialists  are  not  less  frank  than  Hume 
or  Helvetius,  but  others  show  a  noticeable  anxiety  to 
obviate  the  prejudice  against  their  system  arising  from  a 
consideration  of  its  relation  to  morality,  by  discovering  an 
objective  basis  for  moral  distinctions  that  lifts  conduct  out 
of  the  region  of  individual  caprice.  And,  of  course,  the 
materialist  is  quite  entitled  to  use  for  this  purpose  all  that 
is  consistent  with  his  conception  of  man  as  a  being  whose 
conduct  is  necessarily  determined  by  his  corporeal  organisa- 
tion. With  this  conception  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  rise 
above  egoism,  but  it  is  competent  for  him  to  press  the 
question,  What  is  the  Ego  t  What  am  I  ?  What  is  the  actual 
nature  of  my  physical  organisation  as  determined  by  the  process 

1  From  UnpMUhtd  E8$ay$.  VieU  Home't  Worht,  by  Chreen  k  Oroaa, 
a.  410. 

'  09uvre$,  Tome  Premier,  p.  804.  Helvetias  regarded  the  vices  of  the 
libertine  as  ejx  inevitable  accompaniment  of  Inxnry,  and  the  evil  incidental 
to  them  as  fnite  insignificant  compared  to  the  wealth  which  fosters  them. 


102  APOLOGETICS. 

of  evolution  ?  It  is  also  competent  to  insist  on  the  distinction 
between  a  healthy  and  a  morbid  condition  of  the  organisation. 

Taking  his  stand  upon  the  latter,  the  materialist  may 
say :  It  does  not  follow  from  my  theory  that  what  we  call 
a  criminal  is  as  much  in  his  right  as  what  we  call  a 
virtuous  man.  The  criminal  is  a  man  whose  brain  and 
nervous  system  are  more  or  less  diseased ;  the  virtuous  man 
is  one  whose  whole  body  is  in  a  normal  state  of  health. 
On  this  distinction  between  disease  and  health  moral 
distinctions  rest ;  into  this  distinction  they  ultimately 
resolve  themselves,  and  by  this  distinction  they  are 
justified.  Will  is  the  necessary  result  of  a  condition 
of  the  brain  produced  by  external  influences  which  may  be 
either  normal  or  abnormal,  and  according  as  it  is  the  one 
or  the  other  is  conduct  virtuous  or  vicious,  wise  or  foolish. 
It  may  be  wrong  to  condemn  or  punish  a  criminal,  the 
proper  mode  of  treating  him  may  not  be  to  put  him  in 
prison  or  to  inflict  on  him  stripes,  but  to  put  him  under 
medical  care  in  "  a  moral  hospital " ;  but  it  is  not  contrary 
to  my  theory  to  recognise  moral  distinctions  as  having  a 
foundation  in  physics.  A  materialist  may  speak  of  lying, 
deceit,  murder,  theft,  inordinate  sexual  appetite  as  evils, 
just  as  a  Christian  does,  only  not  for  the  same  reasons.* 

Of  much  more  interest  and  importance  is  the  other  line 
of  inquiry  along  which  materialists  may  seek,  in  accord- 
ance with  their  principles,  to  discover  a  stable  basis  for 
ethical  distinctions,  as  generally  recognised  among  civilised 
men.     The  question  here  is.  What  is  the  nature  of  the 

*  The  study  of  criminal  anthropology  has  mad«  great  progress  in  recent 
years,  and  already  it  has  begun  to  exercise  an  influence  on  criminal  juris- 
prudence in  the  direction  of  practically  setting  aside  the  idea  of  culpability, 
while  of  course  recognising  the  reasonableness  and  necessity  of  social  reaction 
in  self-defence  against  the  criminal,  in  proportion  to  his  dangerou»nes»  as 
distinct  from  his  guilt.  A  good  popular  guide  to  the  literature  of  this 
subject  and  its  various  aspects  is  supplied  in  the  work  of  Havelock  Ellis, 
The  Criminal,  1890.  The  lead  has  been  taken  by  Italians,  and  especially 
by  Lombroso  of  Turin.  The  subject  and  the  modem  method  of  treating  it 
have  no  necessary  connection  with  materialism. 


ffHB  MATERIALISTIO  THEOBT.  108 

nenrovB  organisation  which  I  have  received  by  inheritance 
from  a  long  line  of  ancestors  ?  More  definitely,  Can  I 
discover  in  it  any  principle  which  raises  us  above  mere 
vulgar  egoism  into  the  region  of  that  benevolent  regard  to 
others  with  which  human  morality  may  be  said  to  begin  ? 
Now  it  is  open  to  the  materialist  to  point  to  the  feeling 
of  sympathy  as  such  a  principle,  claiming  for  it  to  be  as 
natural,  as  much  the  outcome  of  our  organisation,  as 
hunger,  or  any  other  animal  instinct ;  much  weaker  in  the 
ordinary  man  than  the  imperious  appetites  common  to  him 
with  the  brutes,  but  not  less  than  they  a  real  feature  of 
human  nature  as  now  constituted.  If  the  question  be 
asked,  Why  should  man  have  a  fellow-feeling  with  others? 
he  may  reply.  Why  should  man  not  be  a  social  animal  like 
the  bee  or  the  beaver  ?  Of  course,  given  the  social  nature 
a  regard  to  the  interests  of  society  is  as  natural  as  a  regard 
to  individual  interest.  But  the  materialist  may  not  con- 
tent himself  with  a  reference  to  the  existence  of  a  social 
instinct  in  other  parts  of  the  animal  kingdom.  He  may 
undertake  to  point  out  circumstances  connected  with  the 
evolution  of  the  human  race  which  tend  to  develop  into 
exceptional  strength  the  social  affections  which  form  the 
foundation  of  the  noblest  morality.  In  this  connection 
stress  might  be  laid  on  the  influence  of  the  senses  making 
men  acquainted  with  the  experiences  of  beiugs  whom  they 
recognised  as  like  themselves.  Thus,  it  might  be  con- 
tended, "  the  virtues  gradually  came  into  men  through  the 
eyes  and  the  ears."  "  Through  the  connection  of  the  senses 
gradually,  in  course  of  millenniums,  a  community  of  the 
human  race  in  all  interests  is  established,  resting  on  this 
that  each  individual  lives  through  the  destiny  of  the  whole 
in  the  harmony  or  disharmony  of  his  own  feelings  and 
thoughts."*  Or,  again,  the  humanising  effect  of  prolonged 
infancy,  and  dependence  on  parents,  in  the  human  species, 

*  Vide  Lange,  Geschichte  des  Materialismus,  i.  379,  380.  Lange  thinlu 
that  in  this  way  might  be  founded  a  materialistic  moral  philosophy  which 
is  still  a  desideratmn. 


104  APOLOGBTIOS. 

giving  occasion  for  the  formation  of  family  affections,  might 
be  insisted  on  as  powerfully  contributing  to  the  moralisation 
of  the  race.*  In  short,  the  whole  ethics  of  naturalism,  as 
developed  by  the  modern  school  of  evolutionary  philo- 
sophy, might  be  utilised  for  the  purpose  of  showing  how, 
compatibly  with  a  purely  materialistic  conception  of  the 
universe,  an  ethical  system  may  be  held  scientific  in  its  basis 
and  satisfactory  in  its  results. 

A  few  words,  finally,  as  to  the  religious  aspect  of 
materialism.  It  may  appear  mockery  or  banter  to  speak 
of  a  religious  aspect  in  connection  with  a  system  which 
recognises  no  God  but  atoms,  and  out  of  these  constructs 
the  universe  of  being  animate  and  inanimate.  Was  it  not 
the  very  aim  of  ancient  materialism,  as  represented  by 
Epicurus  and  Lucretius,  to  get  rid  of  religion  as  the  source 
of  infinite  mischief  to  mankind  t  But  contemporary 
materialists  recognise  the  fact  that  man  is  a  religious  being, 
and  are  not  willing  to  be  thought  indifferent  to  that  side 
of  human  nature,  or  incapable  of  making  some  provision 
for  it  What  provision  then  do  they  make  ?  God  having 
been  eliminated,  there  remains  as  a  possible  object  of 
worship  the  universe.  Universe-worship  in  detail,  after 
the  manner  of  polytheists,  is  not  possible  in  a  scientific 
era,  but  the  most  advanced  scientist  and  philosopher  may, 
it  is  thought,  still  bow  in  reverence  before  the  universe  as 
a  whole,  conceived  of  as  revealing  to  the  instructed  eye  an 
aesthetic,  a  rational,  and  a  moral  order ;  the  first  appealing 
to  and  satisfying  the  sense  of  beauty  and  harmony,  the 
second  supplying  the  intellect  with  ample  materials  for  de- 
vout contemplation,  the  third  embodying  and  approximately 
realising  the  idea  of  the  good,  and  offering  to  the  conscience 
a  sufficiently  satisfactory  substitute  for  a  righteous  God.* 
This  new  cult,  adapted  to  the  tastes  of  artists,  scientists, 

^  Mr.  Fiflke  has  worked  oat  this  line  of  thought  in  Outline*  (/  Cotmie 
Philosophy,  voL  iL  chap.  xxii. 

'  Vide  Strauss,  Der  alte  und  der  neue  Oltwbe,  p.  142;  ftlso  Seeiey'a 
ifaiwrcU  Religion. 


IHE   MATERIALISTIC   THEORY.  106 

and  moralists,  who  can  no  longer  believe  in  the  old- 
fashioned  anthropomorphic  Deity,  may  not  commend  itself 
to  all  materialists.  To  some  it  may  appear  too  optimistic, 
ascribing  to  the  universe  a  character  it  does  not  deserve, 
and  investing  it  with  qualities  that  have  no  place  in  the 
realm  of  reality,  but  only  in  the  poetic  imagination  of  the 
worshipper.  The  world,  it  may  be  said,  is  not  a  unity 
except  in  our  thought,  nor  is  it  really  full  of  order,  aesthetic, 
rational,  and  righteous,  except  for  the  man  of  optimistic 
temper  who  creates  a  perfect  world  as  a  congenial  home 
for  his  spirit  The  unity  and  the  order  are  mere  ideals. 
For  those  who  thus  think  the  ideals  themselves  may 
become  gods.  Keligion  may  be  relegated  to  the  realm  of 
poetry,  and  men  may  gratify  their  devout  feelings  by 
dreaming  of  a  world  of  truth,  beauty,  and  goodness  which 
never  has  had  and  never  will  have  any  real  existence.* 

In  proceeding  to  criticise  this  bold  and  pretentious 
theory,  I  commence  by  remarking  that  it  constructs  the 
universe  out  of  it  knows  not  what.  Materialism  begins 
with  an  unknown  quantity,  and  ends  with  an  insoluble 
problem.  What  is  this  matter  of  which  all  things  consist 
and  by  whose  motions  all  phenomena  are  explained  ?  Is 
it  atoms,  or  is  it  force,  or  is  it  both,  and  how  are  the  two 
related  ?  Whence  comes  the  motion  that  builds  up  the 
universe  ?  Is  it  inherent  in  matter,  or  does  it  come  to  it 
from  without  ?  These  are  unanswerable  questions.  Science, 
even  when  biassed  in  favour  of  materialism,  is  obliged  to 
confess  two  limits :  ignorance  of  the  ultimate  elements  of 
the  universe,  and  the  impossibility  of  accounting  for 
consciousness.'  The  further  question  may  even  be  asked. 
Is  it  quite  certain  there  is  such  a  thing  as  matter  ?  Of 
the  two  substances  which  have  been  supposed  to  exist, 
mind  and  matter,  which  is  intrinsically  the  more  probable? 

*  Vide  Lange,  Oeschichte  dea  Afaterialismua,  iL  644. 

'  Vide  Du  Bois-Reymond's  Ueber  die  Grenzen  des  Naturerlcennens.  Dfl 
Bois-Reymond  recognises  two  insurmountable  limits  :  the  nature  of  matter 
vaiA.  the  origin  of  feeling. 


106  APOLOGEnOS. 

If  we  must  have  a  monistic  system  of  the  universe,  why 
should  a  materialistic  monism  be  preferred  to  a  spiritual 
or  idealistic?  Is  there  not  force  in  the  observation  of 
Lotze :  **  Among  all  the  errors  of  the  hnman  mind  it  has 
always  seemed  to  me  the  strangest  that  it  could  come  to 
doubt  its  own  existence,  of  which  alone  it  has  direct  ex- 
perience, or  to  take  it  at  second  hand  as  the  product  of  an 
external  nature  which  we  know  only  indirectly,  only  by 
means  of  the  knowledge  of  the  very  mind  to  which  we 
would  fain  deny  existence  "  ? '  Even  Lange,  the  historian 
of  materialism,  in  sympathy  with  the  system,  though 
conscious  of  its  weakness  in  certain  directions,  is  con- 
strained to  acknowledge  that  while  it  remains  for  material- 
ism an  insurmountable  difficulty  to  explain  how  out  of  the 
motions  of  matter  a  conscious  feeling  can  arise,  it  is,  on 
the  other  hand,  not  difficult  to  think  that  our  whole  idea 
of  matter  and  its  motions  is  the  result  of  an  organisation 
purely  spiritual  in  its  nature.* 

As  to  the  manner  in  which  materialists  deal  with  the 
problem  of  the  origin  of  life,  it  is  not  necessary  that  the 
Christian  theist  should  meet  dogmatism  with  dogmatism. 
That  topic  offers  certainly  a  suitable  occasion  for  remark- 
ing on  the  tendency  to  dogmatise  on  disputed  points 
characteristic  of  the  advocates  of  the  materialistic  theory. 
Science  leaves  spontaneous  generation  an  open  question, 
but  the  materialist  does  not.  He  cannot  afford  to  do  sa 
He  must  assume  that  life  under  favourable  conditions  can 
emerge  out  of  lifeless  matter  by  a  purely  natural  process, 
for  if  that  were  not  true  his  theory  would  break  down,  and 
he  would  be  forced  to  recognise  the  creative  hand  of  God. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  believer  in  God  is  under  no  neces- 
sity to  maintain  as  matter  of  religious  faith  the  opposite 
thesis.  His  faith  is  that  God  is  the  cause  of  the  world 
and  all  things  therein  ;  but  he  is  not  tied  to  any  particular 
view  as  to  the  method  of  creation.     He  can  admit  that  the 

»  Mihrokoamus,  i.  296  (Eng.  trans,  i.  263). 
*  Qachichtt  da  MaUrialiamw,  ii.  430. 


THE   MATERIALISTIC   THEORY.  107 

creation  in  its  incipient  stage  would  to  an  onlooker  have 
had  the  appearance  of  things  coming  out  of  an  invisible 
into  a  visible  state,  and  that  no  unmistakable  trace  of  the 
divine  agent  would  be  observable.  In  like  manner  he 
can  admit  that  when  life  first  appeared  it  would  seem  to 
be  a  case  of  spontaneous  generation,  that  it  would  be 
impossible  to  prove  the  contrary  to  one  who  denied  it,  or 
to  force  him  to  recognise  in  the  new  phenomenon  the 
presence  and  power  of  the  Creator.  He  does  not  need,  in 
order  to  magnify  the  wonder  and  make  it  appear  dignus 
vindice  nodus,  to  insist  on  the  mysterious  character  of  life, 
on  the  supposed  difierence  between  organic  and  inorganic 
chemistry,  or  to  contend  for  the  existence  of  a  peculiar 
life-force.  It  is  enough  for  him,  with  the  Psalmist,  to 
believe  that  with  God  is  the  fountain  of  life.  It  is  not 
necessary  in  maintaining  this  faith  to  regard  the  first 
emergence  of  life  as  due  to  the  immediate  and  absolute 
causality  of  God  apart  from  all  natural  conditions.  We 
may  accept  the  view  which  steadily  gains  ground  that  the 
antecedent  state  of  things  contained  the  needful  preparation 
for  the  appearance  of  the  new  phenomenon,  and  that  its 
origination  was  simply  the  next  step  onwards  in  the  steady 
march  of  the  great  evolutionary  process.  This  view  may 
eliminate  miracle,  or  the  purely  supernatural,  but  not  the 
divine  activity  which  underlies  the  whole. 

The  relation  of  materialism  to  the  problem  of  conscious- 
ness possesses  exceptional  interest  and  significance.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  what  philosophical  consistency  requires 
of  the  theory.  It  is  bound  to  regard  consciousness  as  a 
phenomenon  ultimately  resolvable,  if  one  only  knew  how, 
into  a  mode  of  motion.  There  can  be  as  little  doubt  that 
the  feat  is  not  only  difficult  but  impossible.  Thought  is 
accompanied  by  agitation  of  the  brain ;  there  is  a  close 
correspondence  between  mental  states  and  antecedent  or 
accompanying  movements  in  the  nervous  system ;  but  the 
mental  and  the  physical  series  of  states  are  distinct  and 
irreducible  into  each  other.     Here  it  is  emphatically  true 


108  APOLOGETICS. 

that  the  consistency  of  materialism  is  its  overthrow.  The 
fact  is  confessed  by  those  who  in  recent  times  have 
suggested  modified  forms  of  materialism ;  the  confession 
is  indeed  the  chief  value  of  their  suggestions.  Mr.  Bain's 
hypothesis  of  "  one  substance  with  two  sets  of  properties," 
is  a  frank  admission  that  motion  cannot  be  transmuted 
into  mind.  As  for  the  hypothesis  itself,  it  has  little  to 
recommend  it.  It  may  very  reasonably  be  asked  whether 
it  be  scientific  to  conceive  of  two  sets  of  utterly  heterogen- 
eous qualities  as  inhering  in  the  same  substance.  It  is 
doubtless  the  interest  of  science  to  bring  all  phenomena,  if 
possible,  under  a  single  principle,  but  it  is  still  more  its 
interest  to  recognise  a  plurality  of  grounds  when  the 
phenomena  cannot  be  traced  to  one  source,  or  ultimately 
reduced  to  one  kind.*  A  soul,  though  inaccessible  to  the 
senses,  is  therefore  a  reasonable  postulate.  But  theists  do 
not  need  to  dogmatise  on  the  soul  question,  any  more  than 
on  the  question  as  to  the  origin  of  life.  They  may  take 
up  this  attitude :  What  matter  is  and  what  soul  is  I  cannot 
tell.  Whether  either  or  both  exist  I  know  not.  Whether 
one  substance  can  possess  properties  so  diverse  as  those  of 
mind  and  matter,  I  do  not  undertake  to  say.  That  the 
hypothesis  of  a  soul  or  spirit  as  the  substratum  of  mental 
phenomenon  does  not  explain  all  difficulties,  and  even 
introduces  new  ones,  I  am  aware.  All  I  know  is  that  the 
phenomena  of  mind  are  here,  constituting  a  whole  spiritual 
world  in  which  materialism  has  no  part.  I  magnify  this 
world,  and  refuse  to  think  less  of  it  because  it  may  have 
been  reached  by  insensible  gradations,  proceeding  from 
inanimate  matter  to  life  in  its  most  rudimentary  vegetable 
form,  from  vegetable  life  to  the  simplest  form  of  animal 
life,  and  thence  onwards  to  man.'     My  spiritual  life  has  as 

1  Lotze,  Mikrokosmus,  L  165,  168. 

*  Some  theists  unhesitatingly  accept  fhe  doctrine  of  tix«  erolatlon  of  mind 
oat  of  matter.  Thus  Le  Conte  says :  "  I  believe  that  the  spirit  of  man  was 
developed  out  of  the  anima,  or  conscious  principle  of  animals,  and  that  this 
again  was  developed  out  of  the  lower  fonuB  of  life-foroe,  and  this  in  its  turn 
out  of  the  ehemical  and  physical  forces  of  nature,  and  that  at  a  certain 


XHB  MATERIALISTIC  THEORY.  109 

much  value  for  me  as  if  it  had  come  to  me  immediately 
from  God.  And  I  believe  it  has  equal  value  for  God,  and 
that  He  will  not  suffer  it  to  perish.  Whether  mind-lffe 
be  possible  apart  from  a  bodily  organism  I  cannot  tell.  It 
may  be  that  the  brain  is  so  needful  to  the  soul  that  the 
latter  is  reduced  to  the  condition  of  mere  latent  potency 
in  the  disembodied  state.*  But  there  is  no  reason  to  think 
that  death  is  the  destruction  of  the  thinking  principle,  and 
whatever  is  necessary  to  the  full  exercise  of  its  powers  in 
a  future  state  God  will  provide. 

The  other  form  of  prudent  or  moderate  materialism,  that 
which  endows  the  elements  of  matter  with  spiritual 
qualities,  is  an  equally  decisive,  though  not  equally  frank, 
confession  that  the  consistent  thoroughgoing  application 
of  materialistic  principles  is  impracticable.  Epicurus 
ascribed  to  atoms  no  qualities  save  size,  figure,  and  weight, 
and,  according  to  Lange,  this  view  forms  one  of  the  stand- 
ing features  of  genuine  materialism.  "  With  the  assumption 
of  inner  conditions  you  turn  atoms  into  monads,  and  pass 
over  into  idealism  or  pantheistic  naturalism."*  It  is, 
however,  easier  for  a  German  philosopher  to  see  this  than 
for  an  English  scientist,  who  may  discern  in  matter  the 
promise  and  potency  of  all  that  exists,  and  define  matter  as 
the  mysterious  thing  by  which  all  has  been  accomplished, 
without  being  aware  that  he  may  thus  be  combining  two 
incompatible  theoretical  view  points ;  first  making  matter 
everything,  then  to  fit  it  for  its  gigantic  task  turning 
matter  into  spirit,  or  at  least  making  spiritual  qualities 
a  part  of  its  miscellaneous  outfit.  Such  a  "see-saw 
doctrine,  which  now  touches  solid  ground  and  now  escapes 

■tage  in  thla  gradual  development,  viz.  with  man,  it  acquired  the  property 
of  immortality,  precisely  as  it  now,  in  the  individual  history  of  each  man 
at  a  certain  stage,  acquires  the  capacity  of  abstract  thought. " — Evolution 
and  its  Relation  to  Religious  Thought,  p.  313,  2nd  ed. 

^  This  is  the  view  of  Ulrici.  Vide  his  Gott  und  die  Natur,  pp.  329,  330. 
A  similar  view  was  held  by  the  late  Archbishop  Whately.  Vidi  his  Viem 
^f  the  Scripture  Revelations  of  a  Future  State,  Lecture  4. 

'  Oeschichte  des  Materialismtu,  i,  80. 


110  APOLOGETICS. 

it,"*  is  a  not  uncommon  feature  of  English  scientifie 
materialism,  having  its  origin  in  part  in  a  national  indiffer- 
ence to  philosophic  consistency  and  proneness  to  eclectic 
habits  of  thought.  One  wonders,  indeed,  how  persons 
accustomed  to  scientific  methods  of  inquiry,  however 
defective  in  philosophy,  could  identify  themselves  with 
such  crude  speculations  as  to  the  ultimate  nature  of  the 
hyle.  What  is  gained  by  ascribing  to  elementary  matter, 
"  mind-stuff,"  will,  thought,  feeling  ?  There  is  no  ground  in 
observation  for  the  assertion,  and  no  evidence  as  to  how  the 
consciousness  of  the  human  organism  as  a  whole  arises  out 
of  the  obscure  feelings  of  the  component  parts.  That  matter 
feels  is  simply  an  inference  from  the  general  axiom  that 
whatever  is  in  the  effect  must  have  been  in  the  cause,  or  that 
whatever  comes  out  at  the  end  of  the  evolutionary  process 
must  have  been  there  from  the  beginning.  And  granting 
both  the  inference  and  the  axiom,  what  do  they  amount  to  ? 
Simply  to  the  abandonment  of  materialism  and  a  transition 
to  its  opposite,  spiritualism.  Materialism  means  explaining 
the  highest  by  the  lowest,  the  end  by  the  beginning,  mind  by 
motion.  Spiritualism  means  explaining  the  lowest  by  the  high- 
est, the  beginning  by  the  end,  matter  and  motion  by  mind.* 
On  the  ethical  and  religious  aspects  of  materialism  it  is 
not  needful  to  remark  at  great  length.  With  every  wish 
to  be  fair  and  even  generous,  it  may  truly  be  asserted 
that  materialistic  ethics  must  differ  seriously  from  those 
of  Christianity.  We  have  seen  of  what  complexion  they 
were  in  the  eighteenth  century.  It  may  be  thought  that 
the  modern  doctrine  of  evolution  has  greatly  altered  the 
situation  for  the  better.  But  does  it  after  all  make  such 
a  difference  ?  It  may  be  affirmed  that  the  evolutionary 
process  tends  to  develop  in  a   steadily  increasing  degree 

*  So  Martinean  expresses  himself  in  reference  to  the  materialism  of  Pro- 
fessor TyndaL  Vide  his  able  Essay  on  "  Modem  Materialism  in  its  Attitada 
towards  Tlieoloj^,"  in  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  iv.  p.  206. 

'  Vide  on  this  Professor  Caird'a  Critical  Philosophy  of  Kant,  il  88-86  j 
also  Professor  Jones,  Brovming  aa  a  Philosophical  and  B^Ugitim*  Ttadur, 
pp.  202-212. 


THE   MATERIALISTIC   THEORY.  Ill 

right  moral  sentiments,  and  corresponding  right  conduct, 
and  that  we  may  look  for  a  golden  age  when  men  generally 
will  think  and  act  wisely  and  well  Be  it  so;  but  the 
evolutionary  process  has  not  reached  that  stage  yet,  and 
meantime  the  human  race  consists  of  individuals  of  very 
diverse  feelings  and  characters.  Some  are  wise,  some 
foolish,  some  generous,  some  selfish,  some  temperate,  some 
self-indulgent.  What  ground  is  there  on  materialistic 
principles  for  condemning  the  foolish,  selfish,  and  self- 
indulgent,  or  for  their  condemning  themselves?  They 
are  what  they  have  been  made ;  they  act  by  necessity  of 
nature ;  they  cannot  be  other  than  they  are.  They  are 
physically  different  from  the  wise,  generous,  and  temperate, 
but  not  ethically,  in  the  sense  of  being  the  proper  subjects 
of  moral  reprobation;  for  sin  cannot  be  imputed  where 
there  is  no  freedom.  They  cannot  even  be  justly  treated 
as  diseased.  What  ground  is  there  for  thinking  that  the 
brain  of  every  selfish  or  violent  man  is  in  a  morbid  con- 
dition ?  The  quantity  of  brain  and  the  proportions  of  the 
various  parts  of  the  cerebral  organ  may  vary,  as  between 
the  virtuous  and  the  vicious,  but  the  organ  may  neverthe- 
less be  equally  healthy  in  both  classes.  The  brain  of  a 
wolf  or  tiger  ia  not  to  be  considered  unhealthy  because  he 
is  ferocious.  But  on  the  Darwinian  theory  it  is  to  be 
expected  that  there  should  be  men  with  a  wolf-like  or 
tiger-like  constitution  of  the  nervous  system,  and  when 
this  leads  them  to  commit  acts  of  violence  it  is  no  more 
an  evidence  of  diseased  brain  than  similar  acts  in  the  case 
of  the  wild  beasts  whose  dispositions  they  inherit.  Then,  as 
TJlrici  has  remarked,  the  number  of  men  who  are  thoroughly 
righteous  and  good  is  comparatively  smalL  But  the  test 
of  soundness  is  naturally  that  which  is  usual,  and  the 
unusual  and  exceptional  the  evidence  of  an  abnormal 
diseased  condition.  From  these  premises  the  conclusion 
would  be  that  the  healthy  state  of  the  brain  is  to  be  found 
in  the  sinner,  and  the  disetised  state  in  the  saint.^ 


112  APOLOGETICS. 

There  appears  to  be  good  reason  to  doult  whether 
biological  or  evolutionary  ethics  bring  us  into  the  region 
of  ethics  at  all.  But  waiving  this,  it  may  be  observed  that 
the  moral  standard  supplied  by  modern  science  is  a  shifting 
one.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  "  eternal  and  immutable 
morality."  Morality  has  no  absolute  worth  irrespective  of 
interests  and  opinions.  Some  modern  materialists,  indeed, 
frankly  own  and  glory  in  the  variableness  of  right  and 
wrong  from  age  to  age,  according  to  the  condition  of  a  tribe 
or  nation.  That  entirely  diverse  ideas  of  right  and  wrong, 
even  in  fundamental  matters,  are  among  the  possibilities 
of  evolution  is  admitted  by  the  most  careful  expositors  of 
the  doctrine.  Thus  Darwin,  who  makes  conscience  an 
outgrowth  of  the  social  instinct,  remarks : 

"  I  do  not  wish  to  maintain  that  any  strictly  social  animal, 
if  its  intellectual  faculties  were  to  become  as  active  and  as 
highly  developed  as  in  man,  would  acquire  exactly  the  same 
moral  sense  as  ours.  In  the  same  manner  as  various  animals 
have  some  sense  of  beauty,  though  they  admire  widely  different 
objects,  so  they  might  have  a  sense  of  right  and  wrong, 
though  led  by  it  to  follow  widely  different  lines  of  conduct. 
If,  for  instance,  to  take  an  extreme  case,  men  were  reared 
under  precisely  the  same  conditions  as  hive-bees,  there  can 
hardly  be  a  doubt  that  our  unmarried  females  would,  like 
the  worker  bees,  think  it  a  sacred  duty  to  kill  their  brothers, 
and  mothers  would  strive  to  kill  their  fertile  daughters,  and 
no  one  would  think  of  interfering."  * 

This  is  one  illustration  of  what  "  Darwinism  in  morals" 
might  conceivably  mean.  According  to  the  same  high 
authority  another  might  be  the  adoption  of  the  policy  of 
improving  the  human  race  by  killing  off  the  weak : 

"  With  savages  the  weak  in  body  or  mind  are  soon  elimi- 
nated, and  those  that  survive  commonly  exhibit  a  vigorous 
state  of  health.  We  civilised  men,  on  the  other  hand,  do 
our  ntmost  to  check  the  process  of  elimination.  .  .  .  No 
one  j^ho  has  attended  to  the  breeding  of  domestic  animals 
will  doubt  that  this  must  be  highly  injurious  to  the  race. 
1  7%«  Detemt  qf  Man,  p.  99,  2nd  ed. 


XHB  MATERIALISTIC   THEORY.  113 

It  is  Btirprisiiig  how  soon  a  want  of  care,  or  care  wrongly 
directed,  leads  to  the  degeneration  of  a  domestic  race ;  but, 
excepting  in  the  case  of  man  himself,  hardly  any  one  is  so 
ignorant  as  to  allow  his  worst  animals  to  breed."  ^ 

All  risk  of  a  return  to  the  savage  mode  of  dealing  with 
the  weak  may  be  considered  to  be  excluded  by  the  tendency 
of  civilisation  to  develop  humane  affection  and  an  increasing 
sense  of  the  value  of  those  qualities  which  constitute  the 
difference  between  a  civilised  man  and  a  savage.  Granting 
this,  are  we  equally  safe  against  an  anti-Christian  ethical 
drift  in  the  shape  of  a  tendency  to  underestimate  personal 
virtues  in  comparison  with  those  which  make  for  the 
material  interests  of  society  ?  It  has  been  supposed  that 
the  great  merit  of  Christ  was  that  He  gave  currency  to  the 
"  method  of  inwardness,"  taught  men,  that  is  to  say,  to  seek 
their  happiness  within  through  the  practice  of  self-denial. 
But  the  advocates  of  a  form  of  socialism  which  describes 
itself  as  "  atheistic  humanism "  tell  us  that  Christ's  teach- 
ing in  this  aspect  was  the  reverse  of  meritorious,  and 
ostentatiously  declare  that  they  have  no  sympathy  with 
the  "  morbid  eternally-revolving-in-upon-itself,  transcendent 
morality  of  the  gospel  discourses."*  They  encourage  in 
the  industrial  class  total  disregard  of  the  ethical  ideal 
embodied,  say,  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  "  The  work- 
man of  the  great  industry  has  never,  as  a  rule,  paid  much 
attention  to  his  soul,  to  the  vrai,  the  beau,  the  Men,  as 
embodied  in  his  character.  Personal  holiness  has  never 
been  his  ethical  aim.  .  .  .  The  idea  of  a  'holy'  working  man 
is  even  grotesque.  The  virtues  which  the  working  classes 
at  their  best  have  recognised  have  been  rather  those  of 
integrity,  generosity,  sincerity,  good  comradeship,  than 
those  of  '  meekness,'  '  purity,'  *  piety,'  '  self  -  abnegation,' 
and  the  like ;  in  short,  social  and  objective  virtues — those 
immediately  referable  to  the  social  environment — rather 
than  those  individual  and  subjective  ones  referable  to  the 

^  Descent  of  Man,  pp.  183,  134. 

'  Bax,  T\e  Religion  of  Socialism,  p.  97. 

IT 


114  APOLOGETICS. 

personality  as  such."'  This  is  ethical  materialism  for  the 
million.  Its  error  does  not  lie  in  its  care  for  the  interests  of 
society.  Christ  cared  for  society.  He  laid  upon  His  dis- 
ciples the  duty  of  being  the  salt  of  the  earth.  The  question 
is,  What  qualifies  for  that  high  vocation  ?  Wherewith 
shall  society  be  salted,  if  not  by  the  personal  inward 
moralities  inculcated  by  Jesus  ? 

Materialism  popularised  would  probably  be  not  less 
irreligious  than  morally  lax.  Against  the  worship  of  the 
universe,  as  expounded  by  Strauss,  nothing  need  be  said. 
Better  worship  the  univers\im  than  nothing  at  all.  Indeed, 
as  has  been  remarked,  Strauss  invests  his  universum  with 
such  worshipful  attributes  that  his  religious  attitude  does 
not  greatly  differ  from  that  of  deism,  and  it  seems  little 
more  than  a  matter  of  taste  whether  the  object  of  worship 
be  called  God,  or  Nature,  or  the  All  ?  *  The  trouble  is, 
that  for  one  who  has  discarded  a  living  God  it  is  difficult 
to  think  so  well  of  the  world  as  is  necessary  for  the  sincere 
practice  of  this  new  cult.  Does  not  scientific  materialism 
insist  on  the  defectiveness  of  the  world  in  every  sphere  of 
existence  as  a  proof  that  it  cannot  have  proceeded  from  an 
almighty,  intelligent,  and  beneficent  Maker?  The  world, 
on  its  showing,  is  not  full  of  reason,  beauty,  and  goodness, 
but  largely  irrational,  hideous,  immoral,  suggesting  a  pessi- 
mistic rather  than  an  optimistic  view  of  its  constitution 
and  destiny.  What  then,  must  religion  be  given  up  for 
want  of  anything  worth  worshipping  ?  No ;  there  is  one 
refuge  left — Ideals  !  You  may  dream  of  a  world  rational, 
fair,  making  for  righteousness,  though  the  world  of  reality 
be  far  otherwise.  You  may  be  optimist  in  feeling,  though 
pessimist  in  creed  under  compulsion  of  facts.  You  not 
only  may ;  you  must.     There  is,  we  are  assured,  an  innate 

1  Baz,  7^  JBlhiea  of  Soeialum,  p.  19.  Similar  yiewi  an  taught  by  the 
leaders  of  the  social  democratic  movement  in  Germany.  They  practically 
deny  Christ's  doctrine  that  life  is  more  than  meat,  and  assert  that  food  and 
raiment,  not  the  kingdom  of  God  and  its  righteoasneas,  are  man's  ehi«f  end. 

'  Lange,  Oesehichte  des  Materiaiismutf  ii.  648. 


■HB  DmSTIO  THEORY.  116 

tendency  in  the  human  spirit  to  create  for  itself  a  har- 
monious ideal  world,  and  in  this  perfect  world  of  fancy  to 
find  solace  amid  the  struggles  and  miseries  of  life.  This 
is  religion;  legitimate  and  praiseworthy,  so  long  as  the 
pleasant  fond  dream  does  not  crystallise  into  an  earnest 
faith  in  a  living  Providence,  making  all  things  work 
together  for  goodM 


C3HAPTER  V. 

IHE  DKISTIC  THEORY. 

LrrERATUEE. — Leland's  View  of  the  Principal  Deistical 
Writers;  Lechler's  Geschichte  des  Englischen  Ddsm.us; 
Noack's  Freidenker  in  der  Religion;  Zeller,  Geschichte  der 
Deutschen  Fhilosophie,  1873  ;  Eousseau's  Emile ;  Kant,  Re- 
ligion inmrhalb  der  Grenzen  der  hlosen  Vemunft ;  Butler's 
Analogy  of  Religion;  John  Stuart  Mill,  Three  Essays  in 
Religion ;  Schopenhauer,  Die  Welt  als  Wille  und  Vorstellung. 
Vide  also  list  at  head  of  Section  3,  Chapter  I.,  Introduction. 

The  deistic  mode  of  regarding  the  great  objects  of 
philosophic  contemplation — God,  man,  and  the  world — 
differs  widely  from  that  of  either  of  the  systems  previously 
considered.  Deism  recognises  a  God  distinct  from  the 
world,  who  stands  to  it  in  the  relation  of  creator  to 
creation.  It  not  only  recognises  such  a  distinction  between 
God  and  the  world,  but  lays  exaggerated  emphasis  upon  it, 
making  God  stand  outside  the  world  He  has  made,  a  mere 
spectator  of  the  universe  He  has  ushered  into  being,  rigidly 
excluded  from  all  subsequent  interference  with  the  course 
of  nature  He  Himself  established  at  the  first.  The 
Creator  of  the  world  it  conceives  of  as  a  being  possessing 
self  -  conscious  intelligence  and  will,  capable  of  forming 
designs  and  of  executing  them  with  consummate  skill. 
The  world  it  regards  as  a  theatre  in  which  the  divine 
*  Lange,  OeechicfUe  des  Materialitmus,  ii.  54i. 


116  APOLOGETICS. 

wisdom  is  conspicuously  displayed.  To  the  eye  of  th« 
deist,  as  to  the  eye  of  the  Psalmist,  the  heavens  declare  the 
glory  of  God,  and  not  less  the  earth  and  aU  the  creatures 
therein.  Universal  nature  shows  forth  the  glory  of  its 
Author,  the  glory  of  His  wisdom  and  of  His  goodness.  For 
these  are  the  two  attributes  chiefly  insisted  on  in  the 
scheme  of  thought  now  to  be  considered.  God  is  first  of 
all  good,  a  benevolent  Being  having  only  one  end  in  view, 
to  make  the  sentient  creatures  He  has  brought  into  being 
happy.  "  The  earth  is  full  of  the  goodness  of  the  Lord ; " 
"  Oh  that  men  would  praise  the  Lord  for  His  goodness  ! " 
— to  such  scriptural  utterances  the  deist  said  Amen  with 
all  his  heart.  The  divine  wisdom  he  saw  in  the  manner 
in  which  the  Author  of  nature  has  arranged  all  things  so 
as  to  promote  the  happiness  of  His  creatures,  and  especially 
of  man.  Hence  the  evidences  of  beneficent  design  skilfully 
worked  out  were  for  many  deists  a  favourite  theme  of 
study  and  discourse. 

The  deistic  view  of  man  differs  not  less  widely  from  that 
of  pantheism  or  materialism.  Man,  as  the  deist  conceives 
him,  is  a  very  important  being.  He  is  the  chief  of  God's 
works,  the  lord  and  the  end  of  creation.  He  is  endowed 
with  sublime  gifts,  reason,  conscience,  freedom.  And  he 
has  before  him  a  splendid  prospect,  a  blessed  immortality. 
He  does  not  always  make  the  best  use  of  his  powers, 
and  behave  himself  as  becomes  one  destined  to  live  for 
ever.  But  this  is  only  his  infirmity  ;  his  faults  are  but 
pardonable  errors  which  an  indulgent  Maker  will  readily 
overlook ;  errors  into  which  he  is  led  by  "  this  muddy 
vesture  of  decay  "  that  for  the  present  grossly  closeth  in  the 
celestial  element  of  reason,  from  which,  therefore,  he  will  be 
emancipated  by  death,  when  his  soul  will  remount  to  its 
native  sphere  to  mingle  with  pure  spirits  that  delight  in  virtue. 

This  sketch  of  deism,  in  contrast  to  pantheism  and 
caaterialism,  suggests  at  the  same  time  the  characteristics 
by  which,  while  apparently  allied  to,  it  is  really  dis- 
tinguished from,  Christianity.      Four  features  have  to  be 


THE  DEISTIC   THEORY.  117 

noted  in  this  connection — the  conception  of  God's  relation 
to  the  world  characteristic  of  deism ;  its  extreme  optimism ; 
its  lenient  view  of  human  shortcoming ;  and  its  pagan  view 
of  the  future  life.  The  first  of  these  topics  will  be  most 
conveniently  considered  in  next  chapter  in  connection  with 
the  modem  descendant  and  representative  of  deism  which 
goes  by  the  name  of  "  speculative  theism."  The  other 
three  may  be  dealt  with  here. 

1.  The  optimistic  tendencies  of  deists  were  revealed  by 
the  use  they  made  of  the  teleological  argument,  and  the 
views  they  expressed  on  such  subjects  as  those  of  provi- 
dence, prayer,  and  miracle. 

As  already  hinted,  it  was  characteristic  of  deistical 
writers,  especially  in  Germany,  to  dwell  with  much  com- 
placency on  the  evidences  of  beneficent  design  everywhere 
discernible  in  the  world.  To  point  out  the  manifold  proofs 
of  the  goodness  of  God  in  providing  for  human  happiness 
was  one  of  the  pet  tasks  to  which  the  Aufklarung  philo- 
sophers addressed  themselves.  Arguments  were  drawn  from 
all  parts  of  nature,  and  books  appeared  on  bronto-theology, 
seismo-theology,  litho-theology,  phyto-theology,  melitto- 
theology,  etc.  Some  of  the  arguments  were  such  as  to 
provoke  a  smile.  One  writer  found  proofs  of  the  divine 
goodness  in  the  important  facts  that  cherries  do  not  ripen 
in  the  cold  of  winter,  when  they  do  not  taste  at  all  so 
well,  and  that  grapes  do  not  ripen  in  the  heat  of  summer, 
which  would  convert  the  new  wine  into  vinegar.^  One 
can  understand  how  Kant  lost  conceit  of  a  method  of 
demonstrating  the  divine  existence  which  had  degenerated 
into  such  utter  bathos,  and  looked  about  for  arguments  of 
a  more  dignified  description. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  deistic  cDnception  of  God  in  His 
relation  to  the  world  that  involves  of  necessity  a  denial 
of  divine  interference  in  human  affairs.  Pantheism  and 
materialism  both  necessarily  exclude  the  supernatural,  for 
a  God  distinct  from  the  course  of  nature  has  no  existence 
*  Zeller,  Oeachichte  ier  Deutschen  PhUo8ophie,  p.  811. 


118  APOLOGETICS. 

on  those  theories.  But  deism  does  helieve  in  a  Supreme  Being 
distinct  from  the  world ;  and,  in  the  creation  of  the  world 
by  His  power  at  the  first,  it  recognises  a  stupendous  miracle. 
But  if  a  miracle  could  be  wrought  once,  why  not  a  second 
time,  or  any  number  of  times,  as  might  seem  desirable  ? 
The  answer  of  deists  to  this  question  was,  in  substance, 
this :  Miracle  is  excluded,  now  that  nature  is  in  existence, 
not  by  any  want  of  power  in  God,  but  by  the  absence  of 
any  occasion.  Nature,  God's  handiwork,  is  a  perfect  con- 
trivance ;  and  all  that  is  needed  is  that  God  sustain  it  in 
being,  and  for  the  rest  leave  it  to  its  course.  To  intro- 
duce the  disturbing  element  of  miraculous  interference 
would  be  to  pay  a  compliment  to  the  power  of  Deity  at 
the  expense  of  His  wisdom.  God  made  all  things  so  good 
at  the  first  that  the  best  thing  He  can  do  is  to  let  the 
world  alone.*  On  similar  grounds,  a  special  providence 
was  denied  by  some  deists,  e.g.  Bolingbroke,  who  thought 
that  the  "  ordinary  course  of  things,  preserved  and  con- 
ducted by  a  general  providence,  is  sufficient  to  confirm 
what  the  law  of  nature  and  reason  teaches  us," — that  is, 
that  to  do  right  is  for  our  advantage,  and  to  do  wrong  for 
our  ultimate  loss.  It  must  here  be  remarked,  however, 
that  deists  were  not  all  of  one  mind  on  this  subject ;  and 
the  same  remark  applies  to  other  topics.  Our  account  of 
deistic  tendencies,  therefore,  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  descrip- 
tion of  average  deism,  leaving  room  for  individual  varia- 
tions. This  statement  applies  especially  to  deistic  views 
on  the  subject  of  prayer.  On  this  important  subject 
English  deists  gave  an  uncertain  sound,  possibly  due  to 
prudential  considerations.  Eousseau's  utterance,  referred 
to  in  a  former  chapter,^  is  the  most  explicit  and  the  most 

*  Vid*  Leohler'fl  OtschiehU  de»  Englisehen  DeUmtu,  p,  821,  where  he  gives 
•n  account  of  the  views  of  Annet,  who  gave  the  apologists  considerable 
trouble.  Annet  argued,  "A  proper  government  most  be  all  of  a  piece.  If 
we  think  of  God  as  displeased  with  this  or  the  other  event,  and  therefore 
altering  things,  we  get  a  system  which  it  might  perhaps  be  too  stroog  to 
call  atheism,  but,  to  say  the  least,  there  is  little  of  Qod  ia  tt." 

2  Vide  p.  28. 


THE  DEISTIC   THEORY.  119 

Id  accordance  with  the  optimistic  spirit  of  the  system.  It 
pronounced  prayer  inadmissible  both  in  the  physical  and 
in  the  spiritual  sphere ;  in  the  former,  because  it  amounted 
to  asking  God  to  work  needless  miracles  in  our  behalf ;  in 
the  latter,  because  it  was  virtually  asking  God  to  do  our 
work.  Our  duty  is  to  acquiesce  in  the  established  order  as 
the  best  possible,  and  to  say,  Thy  will  be  done. 

2.  The  deistic  view  of  human  nature  might  be  charac- 
terised as  Pelagian.  Of  man's  moral  shortcoming  deists 
generally  took  a  genial  and  tolerant  view.  They  did  not, 
indeed,  like  pantheists  and  materialists,  get  rid  of  sin 
altogether  by  denying  human  freedom.  On  the  contrary, 
they  asserted  with  emphasis  the  freedom  of  the  will  as  one 
of  man's  highest  attributes,  and  claimed  for  him  power  to 
give  practical  proof  of  his  freedom  by  a  life  of  virtue  and 
wisdom.  Freedom  was  one  of  three  great  watcliwords  in 
the  deistic  creed — "  God,  Freedom,  Immortality."  "  Thou 
canst  because  thou  oughtest,"  said  Kant,  herein  acting  as 
the  spokesman  of  his  time.  But  average  deists  did  not 
take  the  moral  imperative  by  any  means  so  earnestly  as 
did  the  great  critical  philosopher.  They  weakened  the 
"  shall  "  to  make  the  "  can  "  easier.  In  other  words,  they 
represented  man  as  placed  in  circumstances  which  rendered 
it  unreasonable  to  expect  from  him  high  moral  attainment, 
and  made  it  possible  to  regard  him  as  essentially  good, 
while  admitting  his  faults.  In  this  way  they  made  sin  a 
light  thing,  while  not  treating  it  absolutely  as  a  nonentity. 
Misconduct  arose  from  the  "  passions  wild  and  strong," 
on  which  Eobert  Burns  threw  the  blame  of  his  delin- 
quencies ;  from  the  senses,  which,  as  Kousseau  pled,  make 
men,  especially  in  youth,  the  victims  of  delusions ;  from 
the  limitation  of  the  spirit,  which,  according  to  Bahrdt, 
makes  error  in  the  earthly  stage  of  man's  career  a  thing 
of  course.  It  aU  comes  of  this  body  of  death,  this  gross 
fleshly  prison  of  the  soul.     But  we  are   exhorted  not  to 

^  For  an  account  of  the  opinions  of  this  member  of   the  Anfklarung 
fraternity,  vide  Noack's  Freidenher,  3ter  Theil,  pp.  103-136. 


120  APOLOGETICS. 

lament  too  bitterly  that  our  spirit  in  the  present  life  is 
Bubject  to  sense,  and  chained  to  a  body  which  enslaves  it 
"  If  the  spirit  had  been  unconnected  with  a  body,  it  would 
have  had  no  merit  in  loving  and  pursuing  a  moral  ordef 
which  it  had  no  temptation  to  violate.  Human  virtue  in 
that  case  would  have  fallen  short  of  the  sublime,  and  sunk 
to  the  level  of  angelic  goodness,"  *  Where  to  be  virtuous 
is  heroic,  failure  must  be  veniaL  Therefore  those  who  are 
conscious  of  moral  frailty  need  not  greatly  vex  themselves. 
Nor  need  they  fear  the  frown  of  an  indulgent  Deity. 
Pardon  is  a  matter  of  course ;  no  atonement  is  necessary  ; 
no  sclieme  of  redemption  called  for.  The  true  redeemer  is 
death;  not  Christ's  death,  but  our  own.  When  death 
comes,  to  quote  once  more  the  eloquent  author  of  Emile, 
**  I  am  delivered  from  the  trammels  of  the  body,  and  am 
myself  without  contradiction." 

3.  These  words  help  us  to  pass  easily  to  the  third 
characteristic  of  the  deistic  system — its  pagan  view  of  the 
future  life.  By  the  epithet  "  pagan "  I  mean  to  convey 
the  idea  that  the  hope  of  deism  regarding  the  life  beyond, 
like  that  of  Greek  philosophy,  contemplates  only  a  dis- 
embodied form  of  existence.  The  watchword  of  deism  is 
the  immortality  of  the  soul ;  whereas  that  of  Christianity 
is  the  resurrection  of  the  body.  On  this  point  there  is 
general  agreement  among  the  freethinkers  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  The  re-embodiment  of  the  soul  in  the  life  beyond 
is  not  merely  not  affirmed,  but  expressly  denied  and  argued 
against.  "  Immortality,"  writes  the  German  illuminist 
Bahrdt,  "  what  does  that  mean  ?  The  word  man  cannot 
here  be  taken  in  the  full  sense,  since  the  greatest  part  of 
that  which  we  name  man  enters  into  the  circular  course  of 
nature,  becomes  earth  and  then  plants,  and  distributes  itself 
through  a  thousand  forms  of  being.  It  can  therefore  be 
the  '  I '  only  that  is  meant  when  it  is  maintained  that  man 
is  immortal.  I,  the  possessor  of  so  many  thousands  of 
ideas,  with  the  consciousness  of  my  former  and  present 

'  Ron8se«n,  Emile,  Lhr.  It. 


THE   DEISTIC   THEORY.  121 

condition,  will  continue,  when  my  visible  part,  my  body, 
has  been  for  ever  annihilated.***  The  deistic  habit  of 
thought  was  to  regard  the  body  as  a  hindrance  to  the  life 
of  the  soul,  from  which  one  should  be  thankful  to  be  for 
ever  rid.  The  Kantian  sentiment,  "  What  would  this  clod 
of  a  body  do  in  the  eternal  world  1 "  all  deists  cordially 
endorsed. 

On  one  point  connected  with  the  doctrine  of  a  future 
life  the  representatives  of  deistic  tendencies  betray  per- 
plexity and  exhibit  contrarieties  of  opinion.  With  one 
consent  they  predict  a  blessed  life  after  death  for  the 
good.  But  what  of  those  who  are  not  good,  who  have 
loved  vice  rather  than  virtue,  folly  rather  than  wisdom  ? 
Are  their  souls,  too,  immortal,  and  how  does  it  fare  with 
these  ?  Some  were  tempted  to  get  rid  of  the  perplexing 
problem  by  denying  the  future  life  altogether,  choosing  to 
forego  the  hope  of  an  eternal  reward  to  escape  the  un- 
welcome alternative  of  eternal  punishment  This  course, 
however,  could  hardly  find  general  approval  in  a  school  of 
thinkers  with  whom  the  necessity  of  a  future  state  to 
redress  the  inequalities  of  the  present  was  a  favourite 
theme.  It  was  rather  to  be  expected  that  they  would 
follow  the  example  of  Reimarus,  and  boldly  proclaim  their 
belief  in  a  future  involving  both  alternatives — an  infinite 
Fear,  as  well  as  an  infinite  Hope.*  Yet  they  could  not  but 
be  in  a  strait  betwixt  two,  for  so  robust  a  creed  was  dis- 
tasteful and  repellant  to  deistical  soft-heartedness ;  and 
many,  accordingly,  were  at  a  loss  what  to  believe.  Chubb 
thought  it  questionable  whether  the  retributions  of  the 
future  state,  if  there  were  such,  would  apply  to  any  but  a 
small  number  of  conspicuous  offenders  and  benefactors, 
consigning  the  rest  of  mankind  to  annihilation,  as  not 
worthy  either  of  eternal  weal  or  eternal  woe.*  Eousseau's 
statement  is  the   most  typical  and  pathetic,  giving  vivid 

*  Foack,  Die  Friedenler,  8ter  Theil,  p.  128, 

*  For  the  Tiews  of  Reimaras,  vide  Noack,  8t«r  HmO,  ppw  90-92. 

*  Laland's  Deista^  i  198, 199. 


123  APOLooBnca. 

eloquent  expression  to  the  conflict  between  two  classes  of 
feelings  —  respect  for  divine  justice  and  abhorrence  of 
wickedness  on  the  one  side;  faith  in  divine  benevolence 
and  pity  for  the  suffering,  however  bad,  on  the  other.* 
The  antinomy  is  one  with  which  all  thoughtful  humane 
men  are  familiar ;  and  its  effect  is  the  same  now  as  then, 
to  abate  dogmatism  and  produce  suspense  of  judgment. 

Eeviewing  now  this  brief  sketch  of  the  deistic  mode  of 
contemplating  the  universe,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the 
picture  presented  is  a  very  genial  one.  There  is  so  much 
light  and  so  little  darkness  in  the  deist's  world ;  so  much 
joy  and  so  little  misery — at  least  so  little  misery  that  has 
not  a  bright  side  to  relieve  the  gloom ;  so  much  goodness 
and  so  little  absolute  wickedness.  The  deist  moves  about 
on  this  earth  well  pleased  with  God,  with  the  creation,  with 
his  fellow-men,  and  above  all  with  himself ;  his  heart  filled 
with  tender  sentiments,  intoxicated  with  a  sense  of  the 
beautiful  in  nature,  passionately  in  love  with  virtue,  cherish- 
ing high  hopes  of  human  progress  in  wisdom  and  goodness, 
until  all  the  curses  under  which  the  race  groans  shall  have 
disappeared,  and  the  dark  shadows  of  superstition  been 
chased  away,  and  the  age  of  reason  and  common-sense  been 
ushered  in  with  millennial  glory.  You  would  not  be  sur- 
prised to  hear  him  singing :  "  O  Lord,  how  manifold  are 
Thy  works  !  in  wisdom  hast  Thou  made  them  all :  the 
earth  is  full  of  Thy  riches."  *  And  again :  "  The  glory  of 
the  Lord  shall  endure  for  ever:  the  Lord  shall  rejoice  in 
His  works.  I  will  sing  unto  the  Lord  as  long  as  I  live.  .  .  . 
My  meditation  of  Him  shall  be  sweet :  I  will  be  glad  in 
the  Lord,"'  The  next  stanza :  "  Let  the  sinners  be  con- 
sumed out  of  the  earth,  and  let  the  wicked  be  no  more,"* 
he  would  of  course  omit  as  unworthy  of  an  enlightened  aga 
He  might  say  to  himself.  What  a  pity  the  pages  of  that 
otherwise  excellent  Hebrew  book  should  be  disfigured  by 
so  inhuman  a  sentiment,  and  that  there  should  be  so  much 

»  Vide  EmUe,  Liv.  !▼.  ■  Ps.  civ.  24. 

«  Ps.  civ.  31,  33,  84.  •Pa.  civ.  86. 


THE  DEISTIC   THEORY.  123 

in  it  about  sin  and  judgment,  and  wrath  and  sacrifice  1  And 
we  in  turn  may  say.  What  a  pity  there  is  so  much  in  the 
world  to  justify  these  darker  elements  in  the  biblical  mode 
of  viewing  God,  man,  and  the  course  of  providence,  and  to 
make  the  deist's  theory  appear  the  romantic  dream  of  one 
who  refuses  to  see  whatever  is  disagreeable  to  his  feelings. 

Deistic  optimism  is  superficial  and  extravagant.  It  may 
be  distinguished  from  Christian  optimism  by  saying  that, 
whereas  the  Christian  hopes  that  evil  will  eventually  be 
overcome  by  good,  the  deist  virtually  denies  the  existence 
of  evil,  and  proclaims  the  present  prevalence  of  good.  The 
deistical  use  of  the  argument  from  design  in  the  service 
of  this  shallow  and  one-sided  optimism  is  very  open  to 
criticism.  Two  questions  might  be  raised  in  regard  to  it : 
whether  the  argument  be  at  all  competent,  and,  granting  its 
competency,  whether  it  supplies  as  unequivocal  evidence  of 
the  goodness  of  God  as  deists  imagined. 

The  former  of  these  two  questions  does  not  properly 
belong  to  the  criticism  of  deism ;  seeing  that  the  employ- 
ment of  the  teleological  argument  in  proof  of  the  being  and 
attributes  of  God  was  not  confined  to  deists,  but  was 
common  to  them  and  their  Christian  opponents.  It  may 
be  said  indeed  with  truth  that  this  argument  belongs  not  to 
a  party  but  to  mankind.  Since  the  days  of  Socrates,  and 
long  before,  the  aspect  of  design  everywhere  exhibited  in 
the  works  of  nature  has  attracted  the  attention  of  thought- 
ful men,  and  been  regarded  as  evidence  that  this  world  is 
the  product  of  a  Great  Wise  Mind.  Even  now,  when  the 
recent  advance  of  science  has  rendered  the  argument  in  its 
old  form  antiquated,  men  thoroughly  imbued  with  the 
modem  scientific  spirit  are  constrained  to  acknowledge  its 
irresistible  force,  and  Christian  apologists  claim  for  it,  as 
readjusted  to  new  intellectual  surroundings,  undiminished 
cogency.  Another  opportunity  will  occur  for  referring  to 
this  venerable  line  of  proof ;  meantime  it  may  suflBce  to  say 
with  reference  to  the  deists,  that  as  men  who  maintained 
the  Bufficiency  of  the  light  of  ^raUy  mad^ 


124  APOLOGETICS. 

the  most  rf  all  sources  of  knowledge  concerning  God 
accessible  to  reason,  and  especially  of  those  traces  of 
adaptive  skill  with  which,  by  common  consent,  the  world 
was  filled.  The  only  question  that  may  fairly  be  asked  is 
whether  they  read  aright  the  lesson  which  the  frame  of 
nature  teaches. 

Now  it  certainly  is  not  the  part  of  a  Christian  theist 
to  meet  the  deistic  inference  of  an  omnipresent,  all-per- 
vading divine  benevolence  with  a  chilling,  unsympathetic 
negative.  It  becomes  a  believer  in  the  Bible,  and  in 
Christ,  to  affirm  with  emphasis  that  "  the  earth  is  full  of 
the  goodness  of  the  Lord,"  and  the  average  Christian  is 
probably  not  by  any  means  so  optimistic  as  the  genius  of 
his  faith  requires  him  to  be.  But  the  interest  of  that  faith 
demands  that  the  doctrine  of  divine  benevolence  should  be 
balanced  by  another  doctrine,  which  is  not  indeed  contrary, 
but  complimentary  to  it,  that,  viz.,  which  asserts  the  reality 
of  a  moral  order  in  the  world.  Facts  as  well  as  the  faith 
demand  recognition  of  this  truth.  There  is  much  in  the 
world  that  may  indeed  be  capable  of  reconciliation  with 
divine  benevolence,  viewed  as  a  disposition  to  make 
sentient  creatures,  and  especially  human  beings,  happy, 
but  is  far  from  being  direct  evidence  of  it.  There  is  all  that 
which  has  supplied  food  for  superstitious  fears  and  given  rise 
to  the  worship  of  nature's  destructive  powers,  and  which,  to 
a  Christian  way  of  contemplating  nature,  affords  evidence 
that  the  world  is  a  theatre  of  judgment  as  well  as  of  mercy, 
and  a  school  of  virtue  in  which  the  supreme  aim  is  not  to 
make  man  happy  as  an  animal,  but  to  make  him  partaker 
of  holiness,  and  train  him  for  heroic  behaviour  in  suffering 
and  in  doing.  This  sterner  side  of  nature  the  deists  were 
unwilling  to  see.  Human  superstition  they  traced  to  the 
scheming  of  priests,  not  to  the  elements  of  nature  working 
on  man's  fears ;  on  evil,  the  existence  of  which  could  not 
be  denied,  they  put  the  l)est  face :  it  was  evil  that  looked 
at  closely  was  really  good,  or  it  was  evil  resulting  directly 
from  man's  own  fault,  or  it  was  temporary  evil  that  would 


THE   DEISTIC   THEORY.  125 

be  put  right,  and  abiiiidantly  compensated  for  in  a  future 
state.  Eousseau  gave  classic  expression  to  the  deistic 
point  of  view  in  the  following  words  : — 

"  Moral  evil  is  incontestably  our  work.  The  physical  evil 
would  be  nothing  without  our  vices  which  render  us  sensible 
to  thenL  Is  it  not  for  the  purpose  of  self-preservation  that 
nature  makes  us  feel  our  wants  ?  The  pain  of  the  body,  is 
it  not  a  sign  that  the  macMne  is  out  of  order,  and  a  hint 
to  take  care  of  it  ?  Death — do  not  the  wicked  poison  their 
own  life  and  ours  ?  Who  would  wish  to  live  always  among 
them  ?  Death  is  the  remedy  for  the  evils  you  inflict  on 
yourselves.  Nature  has  wished  that  you  should  not  suffer 
always.  To  how  few  evils  man  is  subject  living  in  primitive 
simpKcity;  he  lives  almost  without  disease,  as  without 
passions,  and  neither  foresees  nor  feels  de»th;  when  he 
feels  it  his  miseries  render  it  desirable,  and  it  ceases  to  be 
an  evil  for  him."^ 

The  representation  is  not  wholly  false,  but  its  one-sided 
tendency  is  manifest.  The  bias  is  that  for  which  Butler 
supplied  the  needful  corrective  in  his  chapters  on  the 
Moral  Government  of  God,  and  which  he  gently  reproved 
in  these  terms :  "  Perhaps  divine  goodness,  with  which,  if 
I  mistake  not,  we  make  very  free  in  our  speculations,  may 
not  be  a  bare  single  disposition  to  produce  happiness,  but 
a  disposition  to  make  the  good,  the  faithful,  the  honest 
man  happy."*  The  tone  of  the  Analogy  of  Religion  is  not 
itself,  any  more  than  that  of  deism,  altogether  true  to 
the  spirit  of  Christianity.  It  errs  on  the  side  of  gloom,  as 
deism  erred  on  the  side  of  gaiety.  The  general  impression 
the  book  leaves  on  the  mind  of  a  reader  is  sombre  and 
depressing.  But  the  position  taken  up  is  unassailable,  and 
might  with  truth  be  more  strongly  expressed  than  in  the 
modest  terms  just  quoted.  God's  end  in  constructing  the 
world  was  not,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  to  make  men  happy, 
irrespective  of  character,  but  to  make  character  and  lot 
correspond,  or  to  use  lot  as  a  discipline  for  the  develop* 
*  AtOe.  Lhr.  ir.  •  AwOogf,  olwp^  & 


126  AP0L00BTIC8. 

ment  of  character.     This  view,  it  will  be  observed,  is  in 

entire  accordance  with  the  Christian  theory  of  the  universe, 
in  80  far  as  it  teaches  that  the  world  has  a  moral  end,  and 
that  the  creation  is  an  instrument  for  the  advancement  of 
that  end — the  end  being  the  establishment  of  the  kingdom 
of  God. 

One  reason  why  the  modem  reader  is  apt  to  find  Butler's 
Analogy  dreary  is  that  he  reads  it  apart  from  its  historical 
environment  If  we  came  to  its  perusal  fresh  from  a  course 
of  reading  in  deistic  literature,  we  should  thankfully  imbibe 
its  teaching  as  a  wholesome  tonic  after  dipping  into  the 
honey-pots  of  optimism.  We  could  even  stand  a  stronger 
dose  in  the  shape  of  a  draught  of  the  bitter  medicine  of 
pessimism.  For  such  as  desire  it  this  medicine  is  supplied 
in  full  strength  by  certain  modern  physicians. 

John  Stuart  Mill,  in  his  essay  on  Nature,  takes  a  very 
dark  and  gloomy  view  of  the  world.  Discussing  the 
question  what  is  meant  by  following  nature,  he  remarks 
that  if  by  that  be  meant  doing  what  we  see  physical  nature 
doing,  then  we  ought  not  to  follow  nature,  because  she 
does  so  many  evil  things.  "  In  sober  truth,"  he  solemnly 
avers,  "nearly  aU  the  things  which  men  are  hanged  or 
imprisoned  for  doing  to  one  another  are  nature's  everyday 
performances."*  After  endeavouring  to  make  good  this 
grave  charge  by  an  enumeration  of  dismal  particulars,  he 
draws  this  conclusion  with  reference  to  the  Author  of 
nature :  that  He  can  be  supposed  to  be  good  only  on  the 
assumption  that  His  power  is  limited,  so  that  He  cannot 
help  many  of  the  evils  which  occur,  and  that  nature  affords 
no  evidence  whatever  in  favour  of  His  being  just.  The 
net  results  of  natural  theology  he  thus  sums  up :  "  A  Being 
of  great  but  limited  power,  how  or  by  what  limited  we 
cannot  even  conjecture ;  of  great  and  perhaps  unlimited 
intelligence,  but  perhaps  also  more  narrowly  limited  than 
His  power;  who  desires  and  pays  some  regard  to  the 
happiness  of  His  creatures,  but  who  seems  to  have  other 
*  Thru  Egtaya  on  JReligion,  pp.  2&-80. 


THE   DEISTIC   THEORY.  127 

motives  of  action  which  He  cares  more  for,  and  who  can 
hardly  he  supposed  to  have  created  the  universe  for  that 
purpose  alone."*  What  would  the  men  of  the  Auf- 
klarung  have  thought  of  such  doctrine  ?  How  they  would 
have  held  up  their  hands  in  virtuous  horror  at  the  profane 
Philistine  who  presumed  to  speak  in  this  fashion  of  the 
omnipotent,  omniscient,  and  utterly  beneficent  Creator  1 
But  Schopenhauer  goes  still  further,  so  that  even  Strauss  is 
shocked,  and  in  his  tender  feeling  for  the  universum  deems 
his  brother  philosopher  guilty  of  something  like  blasphemy. 
Schopenhauer's  doctrine  in  brief  is  that  the  world  is  as  bad 
as  a  world  can  be  and  yet  be  able  to  exist.  Optimism  he 
regards  as  an  utter  platitude  and  triviality,  and  a  heartless 
mockery  of  human  misery.  A  pessimistic  view  of  the 
world  is  in  accordance  with  fact,  and  has  been  recognised  as 
such  by  thoughtful  earnest  men  of  all  times  and  countries. 
The  present  state  of  the  world  is  hopelessly  bad,  and  there 
is  no  prospect  of  improvement  in  the  future.  Physical  and 
moral  evil  will  go  on  unabated  for  ever,  and  the  only 
redemption  or  escape  possible  is  the  resignation  of  despair.* 
Against  this  doctrine,  which  sees  neither  reason  nor 
morality  in  the  universe  or  its  imaginary  Author,  Strauss 
contends  that  both  a  rational  and  a  moral  order  are  dis- 
cernible in  the  world.*  And  without  doubt  he  is  right 
The  pessimism  of  such  writers  as  Schopenhauer  or  Hart- 
mann  is  wilful  and  passionate,  and  ignores  the  patent  facts 
that  there  is  a  Power  in  the  world,  conscious  or  uncon- 
scious, making  for  righteousness,  and  an  all-pervading  order, 
law,  and  reason,  and  manifold  traces  of  a  spirit  of  goodness. 
Nineteenth  century  pessimism  is  as  far  astray  as  was 
eighteenth  century  optimism.  Both  alike  follow  fancy  and 
indulge  their  humour,  and  believe  what  is  to  their  liking, 
rather  than  what,  whether  pleasant  or  otherwise,  can  on 
good  grounds  be   shown   to  be  tme.     Schopenhauer  is  a 

*  Three  Essays  on  Religion,  p.  194. 

*  Vide  Die  Welt  als  Wille  und  Vorstellung,  Bneh  lY.  p.  Ml 

*  Der  aiu  tmd  der  nem  Olaube,  p.  Ii7< 


i:i8  APOLOOETIOa. 

cynic  who  views  all  things  with  jaundiced  eya     The  deist 

was  a  self-complacent  wiseacre  who  constituted  himself  « 
special  pleader  for  God  against  priests  and  bigots.  The 
one  reminds  us  of  Job  sitting  on  a  dunghill  cursing  his 
day,  and  making  desperate  speeches  against  Providence; 
the  other  resembles  one  of  Job's  friends  dealing  in  weari- 
some platitudes,  refusing  to  see  any  mystery  in  God's  ways, 
and  comforting  his  afflicted  friend  by  telling  him  he  must 
be  very  wicked,  seeing  he  is  so  miserable,  for  **  who  ever 
perished,  being  innocent" 

If  the  deist's  view  of  the  world  and  of  providence  was 
very  superficial,  not  less  so  was  his  view  of  man.  Naturally 
good,  but  often  weak,  liable  to  be  enslaved  by  his  passions, 
which  have  their  seat  in  the  body,  from  which,  therefore, 
he  will  be  released  by  death,  error  only  what  was  to  be 
looked  for  in  the  circumstances,  therefore  pardonable,  and 
certain  to  be  pardoned  by  an  indulgent  Deity — such  was 
man  in  nature  and  destiny,  as  conceived  by  the  apostles  of 
common-sense  philosophy.  It  was  a  theory  not  in  accord- 
ance with  fact,  contradicted  by  the  conscience  of  humanity, 
and  anything  but  complimentary  to  the  dignity  of  human 
nature.  No  man  who  knows  the  world,  or  whose  moral 
sentiments  have  any  vigour,  can  accept  deistical  anthro- 
pology. Kant,  in  many  respects  at  one  with  deists,  in 
religious  opinion,  was  not  in  accord  with  them  at  this  point 
With  the  characteristic  dislike  of  a  strong  man  for  senti- 
mental twaddle,  he  virtually  pronounced  the  Aufklarung 
philosophers,  in  their  view  of  human  nature  and  character, 
a  crew  of  quack-doctors,  who  told  their  patient  pleasant 
lies  and  administered  to  him  drugs  unsuited  to  the  gravity 
of  his  disease.  Such  is  the  import  of  the  opening  sentences 
of  his  treatise  on  Religion  within  the  Bounds  of  Pure 
Reason : 

"That  the  world  lies  in  the  wicked  one  is  a  complaint 
which  ifl  as  old  as  history — as  old  as  the  yet  older  art  of 
poetry — nay,  as  old  as  the  oldest  of  all  inventions,  priestly 
religion.     All  make  the  world  begin  from  the  good,  from  the 


THE   DEISTIC  THEORY.  12» 

golden  age,  from  life  in  Paradise,  or  happier  still,  from  fellow- 
ship with  heavenly  beings.  But  this  felicity  they  represent 
as  passing  away  quickly  as  a  dream,  through  a  fall  into  moral 
evil,  which  ever  since  the  fall  has  gone  on  increasing  with 
constantly  accelerating  pace." 

Of  the  contrary  view  prevalent  among  the  philosophers 
of  his  own  time  that  the  world  was  steadily  advancing 
onwards,  he  remarks: 

"  It  is  certainly  not  drawn  from  experience,  if  it  be  of  the 
morally  good  and  bad,  not  of  civilisation  they  speak,  for  the 
history  of  all  times  is  decidedly  against  them.  It  is  probably 
simply  a  good-hearted  assumption  of  the  moralists  from 
Seneca  to  Eousseau,  who  wished  to  carry  on  unweariedly  the 
culture  of  the  seed  of  goodness  possibly  lying  in  us,  and  for 
that  end  thought  good  to  start  with  the  postulate  that  a 
natural  foundation  for  such  progressive  cidture  was  to  be 
jund  in  men." 

Kant  himself  believed  in  a  radical  evil,  appealing  in 
proof  to  the  wanton  barbarities  of  savages,  and  to  the 
characteristic  vices  of  civilisation,  insincerity,  ingratitude, 
secret  joy  in  the  misfortunes  of  even  the  most  intimate 
friends,  not  to  speak  of  sins  of  the  flesh,  which  are  of  no 
account  in  an  otherwise  cultivated  man.  Eeferring  to  the 
remark  of  Walpole  that  "every  man  has  his  price,"  he 
observes : 

"  If  this  be  true,  and  every  one  can  satisfy  himself  on  the 
point,  if  there  be  no  virtue  for  which  a  measure  of  tempta- 
tion cannot  be  found  able  to  overcome  it ;  if  the  question 
which  side  we  shall  take,  the  good  or  the  bad,  turns  on  this : 
who  offers  most  and  pays  most  promptly — then,  indeed, 
were  true  of  men  what  the  apostle  says :  *  There  is  no  dif- 
ference, for  all  have  sinned  ;  there  is  none  that  doeth  good, 
no,  not  one.' " 

While  not  affirming  that  Walpole's  cynical  judgment  was 
correct,  Kant  in  these  words  plainly  indicates  what  he 
thinks  of  men  of  whom  it  holds  good.  This  suggests  the 
reflection  that  in  forming  an  estimate  of  man's  moral 
condition    much    depends    on    oar   moral   ideal.     Lenient 

X 


130  APOLOGETIOa. 

judgments  of  character  and  sanguine  views  of  man's  ability 
to  fulfil  the  requirements  of  duty,  may  simply  be  the  result 
of  low-pitched  views  of  what  righteousness  is  and  man 
ought  to  be.  What,  for  example,  do  I  think  of  the  cor- 
ruptibility charged  by  Walpole  against  mankind?  Do  I 
regard  it  with  abhorrence,  or  simply  as  a  thing  to  be 
laughed  at,  done  by  nearly  everybody,  and  no  great  harm 
in  it  ?  In  the  latter  case  it  may  be  easy  for  me  to  enter- 
tain a  favourable  opinion  of  men,  even  of  politicians ;  the 
only  question  will  be.  What  is  my  opinion  worth  ?  But  in 
the  former  case  I  may  find  it  hard  to  cherish  a  favourable 
view  of  average  human  character ;  for  when  it  is  remem- 
bered how  easily  men  can  be  induced  to  tamper  with  truth, 
justice,  and  mercy  for  a  very  little  gain,  not  only  in  the 
sphere  of  politics,  but  in  commerce,  and  indeed  in  all 
departments  of  life,  it  has  to  be  acknowledged  that  if  all 
men  have  not  their  price,  at  least  very  many  have.  Medi- 
tating on  this  fact  I,  in  case  I  do  from  the  heart  abhor  the 
subordination  of  righteousness  to  interest,  will  be  apt  to 
regard  human  goodness  as  a  deceitful  appearance,  and  to 
be  reminded  of  Christ's  picture  of  the  Pharisees:  whited 
sepulchres,  fair  without,  within  full  of  rottenness  and  dead 
men's  bones.  And  when  I  extend  my  views  to  other  sins 
besides  that  of  venality,  my  sense  of  human  depravity  will 
only  be  deepened  till  I  am  constrained  to  acquiesce  in 
Christ's  verdict  on  human  sinfulness  as  strictly  true :  **  Out 
of  the  heart  proceed  evil  thoughts,  murders,  adulteries, 
fornications,  thefts,  false  witness,  blasphemiea"  This  ver- 
dict I  will  not  merely  admit  to  be  true  of  others,  but 
take  home  to  myselt  To  flattering  optimists  I  will  reply : 
"  In  me,  that  is  in  my  flesh,  dwelleth  no  good  thing.  Nay, 
I  cannot  throw  all  blame  on  my  flesh.  There  is  evil  in 
my  mind,  envy,  vanity,  pride,  tchadenfreudit  meanness, 
selfishness,  hateful  indifference  to,  and  lack  of  sympathy 
with,  the  wellbeing  of  my  fellow-men.  Wretched  man  I 
who  shall  deliver  me,  not  merely  from  this  body  of  death, 
bat  from  these  eTil  tatanio  spirits  f  * 


THE   DEISTIC   THEORY.  181 

On  the  deistic  view  of  the  future  life  it  is  not  necessary 
to  dilate.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  characteristic  shallow- 
ness of  the  system  appears.  In  its  conception  of  the  life 
to  come  pagan  rather  than  Christian,  it  was  slipshod  in  its 
method  of  proof.  The  body  dies  but  not  the  soul,  because 
it  is  immaterial ;  the  good  get  not  what  they  deserve  here, 
therefore  God  in  justice  is  bound  to  give  them  a  second 
life  hereafter  by  way  of  compensation.  If  there  be  a  God 
who  wills  the  happiness  of  men.  He  must  will  their  virtue, 
and  He  must  further  supply  them  with  sufficient  motives 
to  virtue.  But  sufficient  motives  to  virtue  exist  not,  if  my 
ego  do  not  continue,  and  virtue  have  no  enduring  con- 
sequences. Therefore  I  must  expect  continued  existence 
from  God.  How  characteristic  this  over-confident  fore- 
cast I  These  genial  optimists  are  sure  that  God  will  give 
them  everything  they  wish  or  fancy  that  they  need.  The 
world  to  come  is  necessary  to  their  happiness,  therefore 
they  will  certainly  have  it.  No  wonder  such  men  were 
surprised  to  find  next  to  no  traces  of  the  doctrine  of  im- 
mortality in  the  Old  Testament.  A  professed  revelation 
without  a  doctrine  of  immortality — impossible !  exclaimed 
Reimarus,  all  true  sons  of  the  Aufklaruug  vehemently 
assenting.  Yet,  after  listening  for  some  time  to  the  oracular 
utterances  of  the  apostles  of  reason  on  "  the  great  enigma," 
one  begins  to  be  conscious  of  a  profound  respect  for  the 
reticence  of  Hebrew  prophets  and  poets,  who,  whatever 
their  thoughts  on  hereafter  might  be,  were  content  to  be 
silent  on  a  theme  concerning  which  they  had  no  sure 
message  to  communicate.  The  silence  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment about  immortality,  so  surprising  to  deists,  is  mud 
more  divine  than  their  own  copious  efifosive  speech. 


132  APOLOGETICS. 

CHAPTEE  VI 

MODERN  SPECULATIVE  THEISM. 

LiTERATUiiE. — R  W.  Newman,  The  Soul  and  Phases  oj 
Faith ;  Theodore  Parker's  works,  especially  A  Discourse  on 
Religion,  vol.  i.,  and  Of  Speculative  Theism,  voL  xi. ;  Miss  F. 
P.  Cobbe,  Broken  Lights  and  Darwinism  in  Morals  and  other 
Essays;  W,  K.  Greg,  Creed  of  Christendom  and  Enigmas  of 
Life;  Pecaut,  Le  Christ  et  La  Conscience  and  sur  L'Avenir 
du  Theis/iie  Chretie7ine ;  Schwartz,  Zur  Geschichte  der  neuesten 
Theologie ;  Pfleiderer,  Die  Religion ;  Martineau,  A  Study  of 
Religion  ;  Aubrey  L.  Moore,  Science  and  the  Faith. 

In  most,  if  not  in  all,  essential  particulars,  the  system  of 
thought  which  goes  by  the  name  of  modern  speculative 
theism  represents  the  same  religious  tendency  as  that 
which  in  the  eighteenth  century  was  known  as  deism,  free 
thought,  Aufklarung.  In  the  more  recent  system  there  is  the 
same  rejection  of  revelation,  the  same  reduction  of  religion 
to  a  few  elementary  beliefs  made  accessible  to  all  by  the 
light  of  nature,  the  same  optimistic  view  of  the  world,  the 
same  naturalistic  conception  of  God's  relation  to  the  world, 
the  same  sceptical  attitude  towards  the  miraculous  in  every 
shape  and  sphere.  Yet  the  leading  expositors  of  the 
system  are  very  anxious  not  to  be  confounded  with  deists. 
Hence  the  choice  of  the  title  theists,  which,  so  far  as 
etymology  is  concerned,  ought  to  mean  the  same  thing  as 
deists,  the  only  difference  between  the  words  being  that 
the  former  is  derived  from  the  Greek  name  for  God,  Oeo^ 
while  the  latter  is  derived  from  the  Latin  name,  Deus.  An 
English  representative  of  the  new  school  thus  distinguishea 
between  it  and  the  old : 

The  deism  of  the  last  century,  with  its  cold  and  dry 

negations  of  Christianity,  has  passed  away  for  ever,  and  given 
place  to  a  theism  which,  in  the  writings  of  Newman  and 
Theodore  Parker,  may  vie  for  spirituality  and  waimth  of 


MODERN   SPECULATIVE   THEISM.  18S 

religiouB  feeling  with  any  other  faith  in  the  world.  God  is 
no  longer  to  us  the  Great  First  Cause  discoverable  through 
chains  of  inductive  argument,  and  dwelling  far  away  in 
unapproachable  majesty,  where  only  our  awe  and  homage 
and  not  our  prayers  and  love  might  follow  Him.  He  is  our 
Father  in  heaven  once  more,  the  God  who  reveals  Himself 
hourly  to  our  consciences  and  our  hearts  ;  who  is  nearer  and 
dearer  than  earthly  friend  may  ever  be ;  in  whom  we  desire 
consciously  to  live  and  move  and  have  our  being  here,  in 
the  joy  of  whose  love  we  trust  to  spend  our  immortality 
hereafter."  * 

The  American  apostle  of  theism  referred  to  in  this 
extract  defines  his  position,  as  distinct  from  that  of  deists, 
in  these  terms : 

"  I  use  the  word  theism  as  distinguished  from  deism, 
which  affirms  a  God  without  the  ferocious  character  of  the 
popular  theology,  but  still  starts  from  the  sensational 
philosophy,  abuts  on  materialism,  derives  its  idea  of  God 
solely  by  induction  from  the  phenomena  of  material  nature 
or  of  human  history,  leaving  out  of  sight  the  intuition  of 
human  nature;  and  so  gets  its  idea  of  God  solely  from 
external  observation,  and  not  at  all  from  consciousness,  and 
thus  accordingly  represents  God  as  finite  and  imperfect."  ^ 

The  difference  between  modern  theism  and  deism  is  to 
a  considerable  extent  one  of  tone  rather  than  of  principle. 
The  more  recent  system  is  warmer  in  temperament ; 
speaking  generally  that  is  to  say,  for  the  deists  were  not 
all  frigid,  some  of  them  being  almost  as  emotional  in 
their  religious  character  as  Miss  Cobbe  herself.  There  is 
observable  also  in  the  literature  of  the  later  movement 
an  appreciative  manner  of  speaking  concerning  the  Holy 
Scriptures  and  Christ  which  we  miss  in  most  deistical 
writings.  While  denying  to  the  Bible  all  claim  to  be  or 
to  contain  a  divine  revelation  in  any  exclusive  sense,  and 
to   be   regarded  as  the  literary  product  of  an  inspiration 

'  Miss  Cobbe,  Broken  Lights,  p.  175. 

'  "  Of  Speculative  Theism  regarded  as  a  Theory  of  the  Universe,"  Work», 
XL  105. 


134  APOLOGETICS. 

limited  to  its  writers,  niodern  theists  are  effusive  in  theil 
eulogies  on  the  sacred  writings  as  the  most  excellent  of 
all  known  productions  of  human  genius  within  the  sphere 
of  religion.  Of  Christ  also,  while  denying  His  divinity 
and  even  His  absolute  moral  perfection,  they  are  reverential 
admirers,  as  a  man  of  unsurpassed,  if  not  unsurpassable, 
wisdom  and  goodness.  Therefore  they  claim  to  be  Chris- 
tians, and  call  themselves  Christian  theists,  and  even  hold 
that  they  have  a  better  right  to  the  name  than  those  who 
confess  the  Catholic  creed  of  Christendom,  which  they 
regard  as  a  monstrous  and  melancholy  perversion  of  Chris- 
tianity as  taught  and  exemplified  by  Jesus  Christ  Himself. 

Of  this  modern  movement  of  religious  thought,  as 
claiming  to  be  something  new  and  distinctive,  and  as 
entitled  to  respect  for  the  earnestness  and  ability  displayed 
by  its  leading  advocates,  it  is  meet  that  some  account 
should  here  be  given.  A  brief  statement  and  criticism  of 
its  characteristic  views  may  help  the  believer  to  a  clearer 
understanding  of  his  own  position  in  relation  to  con- 
temporary opinion.  The  task  is  not  altogether  easy ;  for 
the  representatives  of  the  system,  while  all  professing  to 
derive  their  inspiration  from  one  source,  the  moral  con- 
sciousness, are  by  no  means  at  one  in  their  sentiments. 
It  is  even  doubtful  who  are  to  be  taken  as  representatives, 
whether,  for  example,  the  author  of  The  Creed  of  Christendiym 
and  Dr.  Martineau  may  be  classed  with  Francis  Newman, 
Frances  Power  Cobbe,  and  Theodore  Parker,  who  may 
without  hesitation  be  regarded  as  typical  exponents. 

The  subject  of  chief  interest  is  the  conception  of  God 
in  relation  to  the  worldL  Theism  of  the  type  now  under 
review  may  be  broadly  distinguished  from  deism  by  saying 
that  the  former  conceives  of  God's  relation  to  the  world 
as  one  of  immanence,  and  the  latter  as  one  of  transcendence. 
These  philosophic  terms,  which  have  recently  obtained 
currency  in  the  sphere  of  speculative  thought,  do  not  con* 
vey  a  very  definite  meaning  to  minds  unaccustomed  to 
their  use.     For  popular  purposes  the  distinction  may  be 


MODERN   SPECULATIVE  THEISlf.  IH 

Identified  with  that  between  within  and  without.  An 
immanent  God  is  a  God  who  abides  within  the  world,  a 
transcendent  God  is  a  God  who  dwells  above  and  beyond 
the  world.  The  distinction  may  be  made  vivid  to  the 
imagination  by  representing  the  immanent  Deity  as 
imprisoned,  in  respect  of  His  being  and  energy,  within  the 
world,  and  the  transcendent  Deity  as  in  the  same  respects 
banished  to  the  outside  of  the  world ;  the  imprisoned  God 
being  the  God  of  modem  theism,  the  banished  God  the 
God  of  deism.  Delitzsch,  having  in  view  chiefly  German 
representatives  of  the  theistic  creed,  states  the  di£feren'*« 
thus: 

"  While  speculative  theism  in  a  one-sided  manner  em- 
phasises the  immanence  of  God,  the  old  deism  emphasised 
with  equal  one-sidedness  His  transcendence.  The  former 
makes  God  the  active  ground  of  the  world-development 
according  to  natural  law,  which  is  dependent  on  Him,  He 
in  turn  being  dependent  on  it ;  the  latter  placed  Him  above 
the  perpetu2im  mobile  of  the  universe,  and  made  Him  a  mere 
spectator  of  human  history;  both  agreeing  in  the  opinion 
that  there  is  no  need  or  room  for  a  supernatural  incursion 
of  God  into  the  natural  course  of  development,  and  refusing 
to  recognise  in  Christ  a  new  creative  beginning  and  all 
that  goes  along  with  that"  * 

No  intelligent  Christian  in  our  time  can  hesitate  as  to 
which  of  the  two  contrasted  views  of  God's  relation  to 
the  world  is  to  be  preferred.  The  deistic  conception  of 
God  as  an  artificer  who  long  ago  made  a  perfect  machine, 
and  then  left  it  to  work  in  obedience  to  its  own  self- 
acting  forces,  is  entirely  out  of  date.  The  mechanical 
conception  of  the  universe  has  given  place  in  modern 
thought  to  the  organic,  and  that  has  brought  along  with 
it  an  altered  view  of  God's  relation  to  the  universe  as 
somewhat  analogous  to  the  relation  of  soul  to  body.  Thus 
far  all  are  agreed,  influenced  by  the  spirit  of  an  age 
dominated  in  all  departments  of  human  thought  by  the 
^  System  der  Christlicktn  Apologeiik,  p.  157 


136  APOLOGETICS. 

great  idea  of  evolution.  But  on  looking  nore  narrowly  into 
the  matter,  one  soon  discovers  that  the  C '  ristian  theory  of 
the  universe  and  that  of  speculative  theism  part  company. 
The  distinctive  view  of  speculative  theism,  when  it 
aims  at  philosophic  precision,  is  that  God,  while  not  to  be 
confounded  with  the  world,  as  in  pantheism,  is  still  so  far 
one  with  the  world  that  His  activity  is  rigidly  confined 
within  the  course  of  nature.  All  the  energy  displayed  in 
the  world  is  His,  and  therein  consists  His  immanence ; 
there  is  in  Him  no  activity  which  does  not  reveal  itself 
in  the  world  of  matter  and  of  mind  according  to  the  laws 
of  each,  and  this  amounts  to  a  denial  of  transcendence. 
Theodore  Parker,  however,  who,  perhaps,  of  all  English- 
speaking  representatives  of  the  school,  has  the  greatest 
pretensions  to  a  speculative  habit  of  thought,  does  not  admit 
that  his  doctrine  is  one  of  mere  immanence.  He  thua 
defines  his  position  as  against  pantheism : 

"  If  God  be  infinite,  then  He  must  be  immanent,  perfectly 
and  totally  present  in  nature  and  in  spirit.  Thus  there  is 
no  point  of  space,  no  atom  of  matter,  but  God  is  there ;  no 
point  of  spirit,  and  no  atom  of  soul,  but  God  is  there.  And 
yet  finite  matter  and  finite  spirit  do  not  exhaust  God.  He 
transcends  the  world  of  matter  and  of  spirit,  and  in  virtue  of 
that  transcendence  continually  makes  the  world  of  matter 
fairer,  and  the  world  of  spirit  wiser.  So  there  is  really  a 
progress  in  the  manifestation  of  God,  not  a  progress  in  God 
the  manifesting.  In  thought  you  may  annihilate  the  world 
of  matter  and  of  man  ;  but  you  do  not  thereby  in  thought 
annihilate  the  Infinite  God,  or  subtract  anything  from  the 
existence  of  God.  In  thought  you  may  double  the  world  of 
matter  and  of  man ;  but  in  so  doing  you  do  not  in  thought 
double  the  Being  of  the  Infinite  God;  that  remains  the 
same  as  before.  That  is  what  I  mean  when  I  say  that  Grod 
is  infinite,  and  transcends  matter  and  spirit,  and  is  different 
in  kind  from  the  finite  universe."  * 

The  doctrine  that  God  is  both  immanent  and  transcend- 

>  **  Of  Specalative  Theism  regarded  as  a  Theory  of  the  UniTera^"  Woritt, 

xLioa. 


MODERN    SPECULATIVE    THEISM.  137 

ent  is  the  distinctively  Christian  one,  and  we  might 
therefore  expect  to  find  Mr.  Parker,  after  laying  down  such 
a  position,  prepared  to  assign  a  place  in  his  system  to  a 
supernatural  divine  activity.  Yet  this  was  far  from  his 
thoughts.  His  doctrine  on  the  miraculous  is :  "  No  whim 
in  God,  therefore  no  miracle  in  nature.  The  law  of  nature 
represents  the  modes  of  God  Himself,  who  is  the  only  true 
cause  and  the  only  true  power,  and  as  He  is  infinite,  un- 
changeably perfect,  and  perfectly  unchangeable,  His  mode 
of  action  is  therefore  constant  and  universal,  so  that  there 
can  be  no  such  thing  as  a  violation  of  God's  constant  mode 
of  action."  *  Thus,  so  far  as  the  fixity  of  nature's  course 
is  concerned,  it  is  as  if  there  were  no  God  distinct  from 
nature,  no  God  other  than  the  natura  naturans  of  Spinoza. 
Supernatural  incursion  is  inconceivable,  impossible. 

The  immanence  of  God  in  the  human  spirit  is  asserted 
by  Mr.  Parker  not  less  unqualifiedly  than  in  reference 
to  the  world  of  matter.  All  human  thought  and  will,  in 
his  view,  is  in  reality  God's  thought  and  wilL  He  identifies 
divine  inspiration  with  the  exercise  of  the  human  intellect 
on  all  subjects.  "  It  is  the  light  of  all  our  being ;  the 
background  of  all  human  faculties ;  the  sole  means  by 
which  we  gain  a  knowledge  of  what  is  not  seen  and  felt, 
the  logical  condition  of  all  sensual  knowledge ;  our  high- 
way to  the  world  of  spirit."'  It  belongs  to  all  men  in 
varying  measure,  proportioned  to  the  amount  of  their 
mental  powers  and  the  extent  to  which  they  have  exercised 
these.  It  reveals  itself  in  varying  forms  according  to  the 
diversity  of  gifts,  making  one  man  a  philosopher,  another  a 
poet,  a  third  a  musician,  and  a  fourth  a  prophet.  It  be- 
longs to  no  man  in  a  supernatural  form,  or  in  absolute 
degree,  not  even  to  a  Christ ;  for  absolute  inspiration  would 
be  a  miracle.  In  e£fect  this  is  to  resolve  the  intellect  of 
man  into  the  intellect  of  God. 

The  absorption  of  the  human  will  into  the  divine  ia 

«  Works,  xL  114. 

*  **  A  Discourse  on  Religion,"  Worht,  L  141, 


138  APOLOaETIGS. 

asserted  bj  this  author  with  equal  emphasis,  not  indeed 
on  purely  speculative  grounds  so  much  as  in  the  interests 
of  a  sweeping  optimism.  Holding  that  God  not  only  wills, 
but  is  bound,  to  save  all  meu,  and  even  to  provide  a  heaven 
for  the  sparrow,  he  sacrifices  human  freedom  to  escape  all 
risk  of  miscarriage.  "  In  that  part  of  the  world  not 
endowed  with  animal  life  there  is  no  margin  of  oscillation, 
and  you  may  know  just  where  the  moon  will  be  to-night, 
and  where  it  will  be  a  thousand  years  hence."  "  In  the 
world  of  animals  there  is  a  small  margin  of  oscillation,  but 
you  are  pretty  sure  to  know  what  the  animals  will  do." 
"  But  man  has  a  certain  amount  of  freedom,  a  larger 
margin  of  oscillation  wherein  he  vibrates  from  side  to 
side."  But  what  then  ?  "  The  perfect  cause  must  know 
the  consequences  of  His  own  creation,  and  knowing  the 
cause  and  the  effects  thereof,  as  perfect  providence,  and 
working  from  a  perfect  motive,  for  a  perfect  purpose,  with 
perfect  material  and  by  perfect  means,  He  must  so  arrange 
all  things  that  the  material  shall  be  capable  of  ultimate 
welfare."  ^  In  short,  men  must  be  saved  without  excep- 
tion, and  God's  goodness  vindicated,  come  what  will  of 
human  freedom. 

Theism  of  this  type  seems  to  approach  indefinitely  near 
to  pantheism.  We  are  therefore  not  surprised  to  find 
Parker  hesitating  to  ascribe  to  God  personality.  "  As  the 
Absolute  Cause  God  must  contain  in  Himself,  potentially, 
the  ground  of  consciousness,  of  personality — yes,  cf  uncon- 
sciousness and  impersonality.  But  to  apply  these  terms 
to  Him  seems  a  vain  attempt  to  fathom  the  abyss  of  the 
Godhead,  and  report  the  soundings."*  On  this  subject, 
however,  other  members  of  the  school  lean  more  to  theistic 
than  to  pantheistic  views.  The  warm  temperament  of 
modern  theists,  despite  their  philosophic  tendencies,  inclines 
them  to  affirm  with  more  or  less  emphasis  the  personality 
of  Deity.  From  the  same  cause  they  love  to  think  of  God 
as  a  Father.  Parker  in  his  exuberant,  extravagant  way 
»  Worhi,  li  116-119.  »  Works,  i.  104. 


MODERN   SPECULATIVE   THEISM.  135 

wag  wont  in  his  prayers  to  address  God  not  only  as 
Father  but  as  Motlier.  Miss  Cobbe  makes  the  very 
essence  of  the  new  theism,  that  which  distinguishes  it 
from  every  other  creed  in  the  world,  consist  in  the  assertion 
of  God's  absolutely  paternal  goodness.  "  Negatively  it 
will  reject  all  doctrines  of  atheism  or  pantheism  on  the 
one  hand,  and  of  a  plurality  of  divine  persons  on  the 
other.  Affirmatively  it  will  assert  not  only  the  unity, 
and  eternity,  and  wisdom,  and  justice  of  God,  but  above 
all  that  one  great  attribute  which  is  our  principal  concern, 
His  goodness."  * 

If  God  be  a  Father,  then  we  His  children  may  make 
known  to  Him  our  needs ;  but  what  room  can  there  be  for 
prayer  in  a  system  which  restricts  divine  activity  to  the 
fixed  course  of  nature  1  Are  modern  theists  not  conscious 
of  a  difficulty  here  ?  They  are,  and  the  manner  in  which 
some  have  attempted  to  meet  the  difficulty  is  instructive. 
On  this  topic  the  new  theistic  school,  as  represented 
by  Miss  Cobbe,  differs  from  the  old  deistic  school,  as 
represented  by  Rousseau,  when  he  said,  "  I  bless  God, 
but  I  pray  not."  Miss  Cobbe  insists,  with  much  emphasis, 
on  the  value  of  prayer  as  a  safeguard  for  theists  against 
ultimate  lapse  into  pantheism.  "Theism  to  be  a  religion 
at  all,  and  not  a  philosophy  leading  off  into  pantheism 
must  be  a  religion  of  prayer."  "  If  we  abandon  prayer 
the  personality  of  God  recedes  away  into  the  dimness  cf 
distance.  We  begin  to  think  of  a  Creative  Power,  a 
World- Spirit,  a  Demiurge, — the  All  of  things."  *  This  is 
a  very  frank,  though  incidental  acknowledgment  of  the 
pantheistic  tendency  of  the  system,  and  it  is  quite  natuial 
and  proper  that  one  conscious  of  the  danger  and  dreading 
it  should  have  recourse  to  prayer  as  an  antidote.  But  the 
habit  of  prayer  is  not  likely  to  be  persisted  in  merely 
as  an  aid  to  a  theistic  way  of  thinking  concerning  God. 
Perseverance  in  the  pious  exercise  can  spring  only  out 
of  earnest  belief  in  the  possibility  of  obtaining  thereby 
>  Broken  Lights,  p.  1B7  *  IbUL  ppw  179,  180. 


140  APOLOGETICS. 

some  practical  benefit  greatly  desired.  But  is  such 
belief  reconcilable  with  the  doctrine  that  the  divine 
activity  is  rigidly  restricted  to,  and  indeed  synonymous 
with,  the  fixed  course  of  nature  ?  The  answer  given  by 
those  who  plead  for  the  reasonableness  and  utility  of 
petitionary  prayer  consists  in  a  distinction  taken  between 
the  physical  and  the  spiritual  worlds,  to  the  efifect  of 
confining  such  prayer  to  the  latter  as  its  sole  legitimate 
sphere.  Prayer,  it  is  maintained,  is  irrational  when  the 
benefit  desired  is  physical, — health,  wealth,  good  weather, — 
but  competent  and  prevailing  when  our  requests  are 
directed  to  spiritual  blessings,  for  such  requests  amount 
to  asking  God  to  fulfil  His  own  laws  of  the  spirit.  "  It 
is  not  irreligious  to  ask  that  God  should  perform  His  will 
on  us,  that  will  which  we  know  is  our  sanctification,  our 
purification  from  all  taint  of  sin,  our  elevation  to  all 
heights  of  spiritual  good  and  glory."  *  It  may  not  be 
irreligious,  but  the  question  is,  Is  it  not  superfluous  on  a 
thoroughgoing  doctrine  of  immanence,  just  as  much  so 
as  it  is  on  a  thoroughgoing  doctrine  of  transcendence  ? 
On  the  latter  doctrine  divine  activity  is  entirely  excluded 
from  the  sphere  of  the  human  spirit,  and  God,  as  Eousseau 
taught,  can  only  look  on,  while  man,  in  the  exercise  of 
his  freedom,  does  or  neglects  his  duty.  On  the  former 
doctrine,  on  the  other  hand,  the  divine  activity  is  identical 
with  that  of  the  human  spirit.  It  is  God  that  thinks  and 
wills  and  struggles  against  evil  in  us,  and  He  does  all, 
not  by  free  concurrence  in  answer  to  our  prayers,  but  by 
the  same  necessity  by  which  He  acts  through  the  law  of 
gravitation.  Thus  the  two  extremes  meet  in  a  common 
exclusion  of  prayer,  for  the  justification  of  which,  even  in 
the  spiritual  sphere,  it  is  necessary  to  combine  in  our 
conception  of  God's  relation  to  our  spirit  the  two  con- 
trasted ideas  of  immanence  and  transcendence,  believing 
that  He  is  in  us  "  both  to  will  and  to  do,"  but  not  so 
that  He  "under  the  mask  of  our  personality  does  our 
*  Broken  LigMs,  p,  177. 


MODERN   SPECULATIVE   THEISM.  141 

thinking,  and  prays  against  our  temptations,  and  weepa 
our  tears,"  but  rather  through  "  a  sympathy  free  to  answer, 
spirit  to  spirit,  neither  merging  in  the  other,  but  both 
at  one  in  the  same  inmost  preferences  and  afifections."  * 
Nor  does  any  reason  appear  why  prayer  thus  justifiable 
should  be  confined  to  the  spiritual  sphere.  It  may,  indeed, 
be  contended  that  God  is  wholly  immanent  in  the  physical 
sphere,  wherein  therefore  His  action  can  only  take  the 
form  of  invariable  natural  law,  and  that  He  is  transcendent 
only  with  reference  to  the  spiritual  sphere,  wherein  He 
may  act  supernaturally  as  "  free  cause  in  an  unpledged 
sphere,"  communicating  His  grace  in  answer  to  prayer.* 
The  truth  seems  to  be  that  He  is  both  immanent  and 
transcendent  in  all  spheres. 

Modern  theism,  in  spite  of  superficial  differences,  betrays 
its  affinity  with  the  older  deism,  very  specially  in  its 
optimistic  views  of  divine  providence  and  human  destiny. 
Parker  is  here  the  most  characteristic  representative  of 
the  school  According  to  his  sunny  creed,  all  things  work 
together  surely  for  the  good  of  men,  nay,  of  all  living 
creatures.  "  The  sparrow  that  falls  to-day  does  not  fall  to 
ruin,  but  to  ultimate  welfare.  Though  we  know  not  the 
mode  of  operation,  there  must  be  another  world  for  the 
sparrow,  as  for  man."  »  This  is  not  only  a  matter  of  fact, 
but  a  matter  of  right  Every  creature  has  a  right  to  be 
made  for  a  perfect  purpose.  The  right  is  inherent  in 
creaturehood ;  it  depends  not  on  the  position  any  particular 
creature  occupies  in  the  scale  of  being,  and  therefore  it  is 
equal  for  alL  It  cannot  be  voided  by  any  accident  of  their 
history.  It  is  easy  to  see  what  view  this  involves  of 
pain  and  error,  physical  and  moral  evil.  These  are  to 
be  regarded    as    divinely    ordered    economies, — temporary 

*  Martineau,  A  Study  of  Religion,  ii  190. 

•  This  seems  to  be  the  view  maintained  by  Martineau.  Vide  A  Stvdy  of 
Religion,  ii.  190-194,  where,  however,  the  subject  of  discussion  is  not 
the  limit  of  legitimate  prayer,  but  the  personality  of  (rod,  its  grounds  and 
implications,  in  vindication  of  theism  a*  against  pantheism. 

»  Works,  xL  116. 


142  APOLOGETICS. 

ills  woiking  toward  a  higher  good  for  man  and  beast,  now 
or  hereafter.  At  this  point  modern  theism  is  at  its  greatest 
'iistance  from  pantheism ;  for  while  the  latter  denies 
abiding  significance  in  the  universe  even  to  man,  the 
former  claims  an  eternal  value  for  the  meanest  creature 
that  lives  or  exists. 

By  way  of  criticism  on  this  recent  system  of  religious 
thought,  two  points  only  need  be  insisted  on.  In  the 
first  place,  it  is  obviously  a  theism  in  a  state  of  very 
unstable  equilibrium,  tending  to  topple  over  into  pantheism, 
and  conscious  of  its  need  for  the  culture  of  a  devotional 
spirit  to  avert  the  catastropha  It  is  not  a  consistent, 
carefully  -  thought  -  out  theory  of  the  universe,  but  an 
eclectic  system,  with  elements  borrowed  from  pantheism 
and  Christianity ;  on  the  emotional  side  Christian,  on 
the  philosophic  side  pantheistic,  and  destined  eventually 
to  go  wholly  over  either  to  the  one  side  or  to  the  other. 

Secondly,  on  the  religious  side  this  system  is  scarcely 
more  satisfactory  than  on  the  speculative.  The  far-off, 
transcendent  God  of  deism  is  admittedly  an  unsatisfactory 
object  of  faith  and  worship.  But  is  the  immanent  Deity  of 
modern  theism  a  great  improvement  ?  Can  a  God  eternally 
immured  within  the  prison  walls  of  the  universe  meet  the 
wants  of  our  religious  nature  ?  What  great  difference 
is  there  between  this  immanent  God  and  the  natura 
naturans  of  Spinoza  ?  Is  it  replied  that  this  God  is 
personal,  the  self-conscious  benignant  author  of  the  world  ? 
Good,  but  whence  comes  this  knowledge  ?  From  the 
moral  consciousness.  The  heart  demands  such  a  God; 
there  is  really  no  other  evidence  for  His  existence.  But 
is  the  heart  satisfied  to  stop  there  ?  If  the  heart  is  to  be 
listened  to,  let  us  hear  all  it  has  to  say.  Does  it  not 
demand  a  God  not  only  personal  but  free,  a  God  who  can 
hear  prayer  in  all  spheres,  exercise  a  constant  providence 
over  men  through  the  ordinary  course  of  nature  or  other- 
wise, work  miracles,  become  man,  demonstrate  His  lovt 
by  that  extreme  act  of  condescension  ? 


MODERN  SPECULATIVE   THEISM.  143 

This  question  reminds  us  that  in  another  aspect  of  funda- 
mental moment  the  system  now  under  review  is  weak  on 
its  religious  side.  It  totally  fails  to  satisfy  the  craving 
of  our  minds  for  religious  certainty.  The  exclusive  organ 
of  revelation  for  the  modern  theist  is  the  moral  conscious- 
ness. Discarding  a  historical  revelation  as  out  of  date, 
useless,  incredible,  impossible,  he  looks  to  the  light  within 
— conscience,  the  spiritual  nature  of  man.  And  surely  if 
there  were  no  other  light  available  than  that  of  our  own  soul 
it  would  be  natural  and  right  that  we  should  make  the 
most  of  it  Nor  can  one  have  any  wish  to  disparage  that 
light,  far  less  to  deny  its  existence,  for  God  has  not  left 
Himself  without  a  witness  in  the  human  spirit,  and  there 
is  truth  in  the  saying  of  Tertullian,  conscientia  naturaliter 
Christiana.  But  it  may  without  hesitation  be  affirmed 
that  the  light  within  is  dim,  to  be  used  thankfully  and 
hopefully  in  the  absence  of  a  better,  yet  not  such  as  to 
justify  a  contemptuous  attitude  towards  that  which  is 
offered  us  as  a  more  sure  word  of  prophecy.  In  proof 
it  is  enough  to  point  to  the  utterances  of  those  who  in 
recent  years  have  professed  to  derive  all  their  religious 
inspiration  from  the  human  soul.  Illustrative  instances 
may  legitimately  be  taken  from  all  who  make  this  pro- 
fession. It  will  be  found  on  inquiry  to  be  almost  the 
only  thing  on  which  they  are  agreed.  On  hardly  one  of 
the  great  questions  of  religion  does  the  oracle  give  a 
certain  sound.  Take  the  personality  of  God.  Miss  Cobbe 
affirms  confidently,  Mr.  W.  E.  Greg  affirms  timidly, 
Theodore  Parker  almost  denies,  that  God  is  a  Personal 
Being;  all  on  the  authority  of  the  moral  consciousness. 
Or  take  the  goodness  of  God.  The  moral  consciousness  of 
Mr.  Parker  enables  him  to  trace  throughout  human  history 
the  constant  action  of  an  infinitely  benignant  Providence. 
Mr.  Greg's  consciousness  tells  him  a  less  flattering  tale, 
bearing  witness  indeed  to  divine  goodness,  but  finding  it 
impossible  to  save  that  goodness  from  suspicion,  except 
by  a  limitation  of  divine  power,  which  makes  it  impossible 


144  APOLOGETICS. 

to  prevent  many  evils  overtaking  man.  Or,  take  the 
great  question  of  a  future  life,  and  what  it  will  bring. 
Mr.  Parker  believes  in  a  life  to  come ;  in  a  heaven  for 
man,  beast,  and  bird ;  in  an  absolutely  universal  salvation 
from  sin  and  misery.  This  comfortable  creed  Mr.  Greg 
is  not  able  to  accept.  The  future  for  him  is  "  the  great 
enigma."  The  intellect  may  imagine  it,  but  could  never 
have  discovered  it,  and  can  never  prove  it.  The  "  soul "  alone 
can  reveal  it.  The  revelation  is  a  purely  personal  affair. 
If  my  soul  does  not  speak  to  me,  it  is  in  vain  that  another 
man's  soul  has  spoken  to  him ;  that  will  not  help  me. 
The  soul  does  not  speak  to  Mr.  Greg  in  very  audible 
or  distinct  tones.  It  tells  him  that  there  are  abundant 
possibilities  for  a  dreadful  hell  in  the  spirit  of  man  con- 
ceived as  continuing  after  death,  but  that  probably  the 
morally  crude  specimens  of  humanity  will  escape  this 
doom  by  ceasing  to  exist.  "  Probably  what  God  bestows 
at  birth  is  a  germ,  not  a  finished  entity,  not  an  immortal 
soul,  but  a  nature  capable  of  being  worked  up  into  a  soul 
worthy  of  immortality,  an  organisation  rich  in  the  strangest 
and  grandest  potentialities ;  not  a  possession,  but  an 
opportunity ;  not  an  inheritance,  but  the  chance  of  winning 
one.  Perhaps  it  may  be  only  such  natures  as  develop 
adequately,  and  in  the  right  direction  in  this  life,  that 
will  be  heirs  of  heaven,  and  that  all  others  may,  as  it 
were,  hever  pass  beyond  the  embryonic  or  earthly  stage 
of  existence."  ^  Take  one  other  instance,  the  utility  of 
prayer,  a  vital  question  in  practical  religion.  Here,  too, 
the  prophets  of  the  soul  are  at  variance.  Miss  Cobbe 
declares  prayer  to  be  both  legitimate  and  useful  within 
the  spiritual  sphere,  and  neither  legitimate  nor  useful 
within  the  physical.  Mr.  Greg  pronounces  prayer  theo- 
retically indefensible  in  all  spheres,  therefore  impossible 
for  those  who  possess  insight  into  the  truth  of  things,  but 
permissible  and  harmless  for  the  weak  and  ignorant.^ 

These   examples  of  variation   do   not   encourage   us  to 
^  Enigmcu  qf  Life,  p.  221.  ■  Creed  <4  CkriateHdom,  IL  196>a09. 


MODERN   SPECULATIVE   THEISM.  145 

cherish  a  high  opinion  of  the  moral  consciousness  as  an 
independent  and  reliable  guide  in  religion.  They  seem 
to  prove  that  the  inner  light  is  not  a  sun  but  a  moon,  not 
a  lamp  but  a  mirror,  reflecting  rays  which  fall  upon  it 
from  other  sources.  Plato,  who  gave  all  diligence  to 
make  the  best  possible  use  of  this  light,  was  conscious  of 
its  dimness,  and  sighed  for  a  surer  word  concerning  human 
destiny  than  his  own  conjectures.  The  surer  word  came, 
and  for  a  while  the  world  was  thankfuL  Now  a  dififerent 
temper  prevails ;  men  place  overweening  trust  in  the  light 
within,  and  despise  the  light  without,  though,  to  a  large 
extent,  it  is  the  real  though  unacknowledged  source 
of  the  light  within.  The  altered  mood  finds  eloquent 
expression  in  the  sentences  which  follow — the  enthusiastic 
utterance  of  a  prophetess  of  the  new  revelation : 

"  In  the  long  pilgrimage  of  our  race  we  have  reached  a 
point  where  the  way  to  the  celestial  city  is  no  longer  clear, 
and  where  no  angel  or  interpreter  stands  by  to  direct  us. 
To  the  right  lies  the  old  road  which  our  fathers  trod,  and 
where  we  can  yet  recognise  their  venerable  footsteps.  But 
that  path  is  a  quicksand  now,  hardly  able  to  bear  the 
weight  of  a  traveller  who  would  plant  his  feet  firmly  as  he 
goes.  To  the  left  there  is  another  path,  but  it  turns  visibly 
before  our  eyes  away  from  that  city  of  God  which  has  been 
hitherto  our  goal,  and  passes  down  fathomless  abysses  of 
lonely  darkness  where  our  hearts  quail  to  follow.  Straight 
before  us  lies  a  field  hardly  tracked  as  yet  by  the  pilgnm 
feet  which  have  passed  over  it,  a  vast  field  full  of  flowers 
and  open  to  the  sun.  May  the  king  of  that  country  guide 
us,  so  that  walking  thereon  we  may  find  a  new,  straighter 
road  to  the  celestial  city  on  high,  beyond  the  dark  river, 
and  to  the  Beulah  land  of  peaceful  faith  here  upon  earth."  * 

The  same  tone  of  buoyant  confidence  in  the  sole  and 
sufficient  guidance  of  reason  or  spiritual  intuition  is 
audible  in  the  more  recent  utterances  of  a  greater  prophet. 
Dr.  Martineau  recognises  the  claim  neither  of  Church 
nor  Bible  to  be  an  authoritative  guide  in  religion.  Not 
1  Miia  Oobbe,  DarwinUm  tn  Morals  and  other  Euaye,  p.  IM. 
K 


148  APOLOGBTIOS. 

even  to  Jesus  will  he  concede  the  right  to  be  regarded  as  the 

Light  of  the  world.  For  negative  criticism  has  enveloped 
His  history  in  a  thick  mist  of  uncertainty,  and  a  series 
of  faith-woven  veils  have  hid  His  face  beyond  recognition. 
We  cannot  now  truly  know  or  clearly  see  the  Son  of  man. 
Nor  does  it  greatly  matter.  We  have  within  ourselves, 
each  man  apart,  the  light  that  can  be  implicitly  trusted. 
In  spiritual  intuition,  God  immediately  reveals  Himself 
to  every  faithful  soul.  That  is  the  true,  first-hand, 
authoritative  revelation.* 


CHAPTER  VIL 

AGNOSTICISM. 

LiTERATTJKE. — Herbert  Spencer,  First  Principles;  Fiske, 
Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy;  Flint,  Theism;  Martineau, 
Study  of  Beligion  (vol.  i., "  Eestatement  of  Teleological  Argu- 
ment ")  ;  Lotze,  Mikrohosmus ;  Janet,  Final  Causes;  Principal 
Caird,  Introduction  to  the  Philosophy  of  Religion ;  Professor 
Edward  Caird,  The  Social  Philosophy  and  Religion  of  Comte ; 
Green,  Prolegomena  of  Ethics;  Aubrey  L.  Moore,  Science 
and  the  Faith;  Kennedy,  Natural  Theology  and  Modern 
Thought;  Kaftan,  Die  Wahrheit  der  Christlichen  Religion; 
W.  Hermann,  Der  Verkehr  des  Christen  mit  Gott ;  Chapman, 
Preorganic  Evolution  and  the  Christian  Idea  of  God ;  Eoyce, 
The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy. 

In  the  foregoing  chapters  the  aim  has  been,  by  the  method 
of  comparison,  to  make  the  Christian  mode  of  conceiving 
God,  man,  and  the  world,  and  their  relations,  appear 
theoretically  satisfactory,  and  on  practical  ethical  grounds, 
preferable.  This  done,  we  might  consider  our  speculative 
task  achieved.  But  it  seems  meet,  ere  passing  from  this 
division  of  the  subject,  to  take  notice  of  a  prevailing 
attitude  of  mind  which  does  not  express  itself  by  pro- 
pounding a  distinctive  theory,  but  rather  by  declining 
■    *  Vide  The  Seat  of  Authority  in  Religion,  Books  III.  and  V. 


AGNOSTICISM.  14*7 

to  haye  one,  and  bj  pronouncing  all  actual  or  possible 
theories  incompetent.  This  attitude  in  our  time  is  called 
agnosticism.  It  is  the  negation  of  real  or  possible  know- 
ledge concerning  God  and  His  relations  to  man  and  the 
world.  God  is,  for  this  modern  mood,  an  unknown 
quantity,  of  which  we  are  not  in  a  position  to  affirm 
anything.  That  He  is  may  be  admitted,  but  what  He 
is  no  man  it  is  held  can  know. 

This  doctrine  of  nescience  is  prominently  associated 
with  the  name  of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  the  author  of 
A  System  of  Synthetic  Philosophy.  In  his  statement  of 
First  Principles,  Mr.  Spencer  devotes  a  chapter  to  the 
discussion  of  ultimate  religious  idem,  which  ends  with 
these  ominous  words :  "  The  Power  which  the  universe 
manifests  to  us  is  utterly  inscrutable."^  The  bearing  of 
this  position  on  the  important  problem  of  the  origin  of 
the  world  is  clearly  indicated  in  the  following  sentences : — 
"Eespecting  the  origin  of  the  universe,  three  verbally 
intelligible  suppositions  may  be  made.  We  may  assert 
that  it  is  seK-existent,  or  that  it  is  self-created,  or  that 
it  is  created  by  an  external  agency.  Which  of  these 
suppositions  is  most  credible  it  is  not  needful  here  to 
inquire.  The  deeper  question,  into  which  this  finally 
merges,  is,  whether  any  one  of  them  is  even  conceivable 
in  the  true  sense  of  the  word."*  That  is  to  say,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  writer,  atheism,  pantheism,  and  theism 
are  all  alike  incompetent  attempts  to  solve  a  problem  which 
is  really  insoluble.  The  obvious  practical  lesson  is  that 
we  should  abstain  from  all  such  vain  efforts,  and  rest  in 
the  conviction  "that  it  is  alike  our  highest  wisdom  and 
our  highest  duty  to  regard  that  through  which  all  things 
exist  as  The  Unknowable."* 

From    the  terms   in    which    the    founder    of    modem 

agnosticism  formulates  his  doctrine,  it    appears  that  this 

much    is    known  about  The    Unknowable :    that    it    is    a 

"  Power    which   the    universe    manifests,"    and     "  through 

>  Firat  PrincipleB,  p.  46.  »  Ibid.  p.  30.  '  Ibid.  p.  118. 


148  APOLOGETICS. 

which  all  things  exist,"  One  might  hope  that  if  80 
much  can  be  known,  a  little  more  knowledge  might  be 
attainable  ;  that,  e.g.,  something  might  be  learned  concerning 
the  ultimate  Source  of  being  from  the  world  which  it  has 
brought  into  existence.  This,  however,  is  peremptorily 
denied.  While  holding  that  the  phenomenal  universe  is 
the  manifestation  of  a  Power  that  cannot  be  identified  with 
the  totality  of  the  phenomena,  the  agnostic  philosopher 
maintains  that  we  can  learn  nothing  as  to  the  nature  of 
this  Power  from  the  qualities  of  the  phenomena.  The 
ultimate  Cause  of  the  world  cannot  be  known  through 
its  effects.  An  American  disciple  of  Mr.  Spencer  seeks 
to  prove  the  incompetency  of  this  method  of  knowing  God 
by  a  redudio  ad  absurdum.  "  Since  the  universe  contains 
material  as  well  as  psychical  phenomena,  its  first  Cause 
must  partake  of  all  the  differential  qualities  of  those 
phenomena.  If  it  reasons  and  wills,  like  the  higher 
animals,  it  must  also,  like  minerals,  plants,  and  the 
lowest  animals,  be  unintelligent  and  unendowed  with 
the  power  of  volition,  which  requires  in  the  first  Cause 
a  more  than  Hegelian  capacity  for  uniting  contradictory 
attributes."  ^ 

That  the  agnostic  position  is  fatal,  or  at  least  most 
hostile,  to  all  earnest  Christian  faith,  does  not  need  to -be 
pointed  out.  If  from  nature,  history,  or  the  human  soul 
no  hints  of  truth  concerning  God,  except,  perhaps,  that  He 
is,  can  be  derived,  a  higher  revelation,  if  not  impossible, 
is  at  least  apt  to  appear  incredible.  Such  faith  in  a 
self-revealing  God,  as  one  imbued  with  the  agnostic 
temper  still  cherishes,  can  be  but  an  evening  twilight, 
after  sunset,  destined  soon  to  fade  into  darkness.  If  the 
teaching  of  Christ  concerning  God  be  true,  it  ought  to  be 
In  harmony  with  what  nature  in  all  its  spheres  suggests, 
not  to  say  proves.  The  Christian  doctrine  of  God,  to  be 
valid,  must  be  a  hypothesis  which  all  we  know  tends  to 
verify.     If  this  be  found  to  be  the  fact,  if  the  Christian 

*  Fiske,  Outlines  ^  Cosmic  Philoaophv,  ii.  888,  889. 


AGNOSTICISM.  149 

God  be  not  without  a  witness  in  all  parts  of  the  world 
accessible  to  observation,  then  the  believer  will  feel 
himself  confirmed  in  his  faith  by  the  consciousness  of 
being  in  harmony  with  the  universe,  of  which  he  forma 
a  part.  On  the  opposite  alternative,  faith  is  in  the  air, 
unsupported,  isolated,  struggling  to  maintain  itself  in  spite 
of  the  chilling  negations  of  reason  and  science. 

The  sceptical  attitude  of  agnostics  may  seem  to  be 
justified  by  the  mutual  contradictions  of  the  advocates  of 
theisnL  For  it  is  the  fact  that,  while  those  who  profess 
nescience  assert  the  valuelessness  of  all  attempts  to  know 
what  God  is,  there  are  few  believers  in  the  possibility  of 
knowing  God  who  do  not  deny  the  validity  of  some  theistic 
arguments,  and  that  there  is  little  agreement  among  those 
who  hold  in  common  a  theistic  creed  as  to  what  proofs  are 
valid,  and  what  sources  of  knowledge  available.  Hardly 
any  argument  has  been  advanced  which  has  not  been 
assailed  not  merely  by  unbelievers  but  by  believers. 
Apologists,  accepting  unanimously  theistic  conclusions,  have 
differed  widely  as  to  the  premises  from  which  these  ought 
to  be  drawn.  Speaking  generally,  it  may  be  said  that 
there  is  a  close  connection  between  the  line  of  proof 
adopted  by  the  theistic  advocate  and  the  school  of  philo- 
sophy to  which  he  belongs.  Disciples  of  Locke,  Kant,  and 
Hegel  all  disallow  arguments  alien  to  their  respective 
philosophies,  and  advance  others  more  akin  to  these,  which 
to  minds  outside  the  school  have  not  infrequently  appeared 
less  conclusive  than  the  arguments  supplanted. 

Among  the  theistic  proofs  which  have  commanded  wide 
acceptance,  the  foremost  place  is  due  to  the  three  entitled 
respectively  the  cosmological,  the  teleological,  and  the 
ontological,  which  may  be  called  the  standard  arguments 
for  the  existence  of  a  great  First  Cause,  almighty,  wise, 
good,  and  perfect.  The  first  argues  from  the  mere  existence 
of  a  world  to  an  absolutely  necessary  Being  from  whom  it 
took  its  origin.  The  world  as  a  whole  it  regards  as  an 
effect  whose  cause  is  Qod.     The  Argument  implies  that  the 


150  APOLOGETICS. 

world  as  we  know  it  is  contingent,  that  is,  does  not 
necessarily  exist,  and  that  it  is  an  event,  or  had  a  com- 
mencement. The  principle  on  which  it  proceeds  is  that 
for  all  contingent  being  the  ultimate  source  must  be  a 
cause  necessarily  and  eternally  existing.  Its  force  may  be 
evaded  either  by  denying  that  the  world  had  a  beginning ;  * 
or  by  denying  that  any  contingent  system  of  things  needs 
any  cause  other  than  an  antecedent  system  also  contingent, 
explicable  in  turn  by  a  third,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum  in 
an  eternal  succession  of  causes  and  effects ;  or  yet  again, 
more  boldly,  by  maintaining  that  the  category  of  causality 
is  inapplicable  to  God  as  the  Supersensible  and  the 
Infinite.* 

The  teleological  argument  is  based  on  the  manifold 
instances  of  adaptation  discernible  in  the  world,  as  of  the 
parts  of  an  organism  to  its  function,  or  of  an  organ  to  its 
environment.  These  adaptations  wear  the  aspect  of  design, 
and  suggest  the  thought  that  a  world  full  of  them  must  be 
the  work  of  an  infinitely  wise  Mind.  "  He  that  planted 
the  ear,  shall  He  not  hear  ?  He  that  formed  the  eye, 
shall  He  not  see  ? "  To  the  religious  spirit  the  reasoning 
quaintly  conveyed  in  these  questions  of  the  Psalmist  will 
never  cease  to  appeal.  Science  and  philosophy  may 
criticise,  but  science  itself  only  supplies  new  materials -for 
an  argument,  which,  suggested  by  a  single  instance  of 
adaptation,  acquires  through  the  indefinite  multiplication 
of  examples  a  cumulative  force  which  many  feel  to  be 
irresistible.     Living  in  a  cosmos  everywhere  pervaded  by 

^  Flint  says  that  the  question  whether  the  oniyerae  had  a  commencement 
li  (Ae  question  in  the  theistio  argument  from  causality. — Theism,  p.  101. 

'  Kant  maintained  that  the  principle  of  causality  cannot  take  ua  beyond 
the  limits  of  the  sensible  world.  Principal  Caird  contends  that  the  category 
can  be  applied  only  to  the  finite.  His  argument  is  to  this  effect.  The 
relation  of  cause  and  effect  implies  the  succession  or  the  coexistence  of  its 
members.  In  the  latter  case  things  exist  externally  to  each  other,  mutually 
acting  on  each  other.  In  the  former  the  cause  passes  into  the  effect  and 
ceases  to  be  ;  heat  produces  and  paases  into  motion.  Both  aspects  of  the 
relation  imply  a  limitation  in  space  and  time  that  cannot  have  place  with 
reference  to  God  as  infinite  and  eternal.     Vide  hia  Spimma^  ppi.  187,  168. 


AGNOSTICISM.  151 

order,  the  man  of  unsophisticated  mind  finds  it  impossible 
to  acquiesce  in  the  dictum  of  Strauss :  "  This  world  was 
not  planned  by  a  highest  reason,  though  it  has  the  highest 
reason  for  its  goal."  ^  He  rather  endorses  with  emphasis 
the  verdict  of  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill,  no  prejudiced  witness,  that 
"  It  must  be  allowed  that  in  the  present  state  of  our  know- 
ledge the  adaptations  in  nature  afford  a  large  balance  of 
probability  in  favour  of  creation  by  intelligenca"  ' 

Yet  since  the  days  of  Kant  this  ancient,  popular,  and 
still  impressive  argument  has  been  regarded  with  more  or 
less  disfavour  by  many  philosophers  and  theologians.  Kant 
himself,  while  treating  it  with  respect,  strove  to  minimise 
its  value,  partly  in  order  to  read  a  lesson  of  moderation  to 
the  men  of  the  Aufklarung,  who  did  their  best  to  make  it 
ridiculous.  He  held  that  it  yields  at  most  a  World- Architect, 
not  a  creator.  Author  of  the  form  not  of  the  matter  of  the 
universe,  and  only  a  very  wise  Architect,  not  an  absolutely 
wise,  and  doubted  if  in  strict  logic  it  can  give  us  so  much. 
He  robbed  it  of  all  support  in  the  internal  adaptations  of  an 
organism  such  as  the  eye,  by  his  conception  of  an  organism 
as  a  structure  in  which  all  the  parts  mutually  condition 
and  produce  each  other,  are  mutually  to  each  other  at 
once  cause  and  effect,  and  all  alike  are  possible  only 
through  their  relation  to  the  whole  and  owe  their  existence 
to  their  relation.  In  this  bearing  of  all  the  parts  on 
the  whole  he  recognised  a  teleology  of  nature,  yet  not 
such  as  implies  a  cause  outside  of  them  who  has  an  idea 
of  their  design.  He  admitted  that  it  comes  very  natural 
to  us  to  think  of  such  an  outside  designing  cause,  but  held 
nevertheless  that  the  conception  comes  from  our  own  spirit, 
and  has  no  objective  value.*  In  this  view  he  was 
followed  by  Hegel,  who,  in  his  lectures  on  the  proofs 
of  the  existence  of  God,  remarks :  "  The  inner  construction 
of  the   bodily  organism,  the  functions  of  the  nerve  and 

^  Der  alte  tind  der  neue  Olavbe,  p.  148. 
'  71ire»  Essays  on  Beligion,  p.  174. 
*  Kriiik  cUr  UrtheUskn^ 


152  APOLOGETICS. 

bl)od  system,  of  the  lungs,  liver,  stomach,  and  theii 
mutual  harmony,  are  certainly  very  surprising.  Dots  not 
this  harmony  demand  Another  besides  the  organic  subject 
as  its  cause  ?  This  question  we  may  leave  on  one  side, 
as  if  one  grasps  the  notion  of  an  organism,  this  develop- 
ment of  teleological  adaptation  is  a  necessary  consequence 
of  the  vitality  of  the  subject." 

The  Darwinian  theory  has  largely  restricted  the  material 
available  for  the  teleological  argument,  by  inverting  the 
mode  of  conceiving  the  relation  between  an  organ  and  its 
environment.  Whereas  of  old  the  fitness  between  the  two 
was  regarded  as  the  result  of  intentional  adaptation  of 
organ  to  environment,  according  to  the  new  scientific  point 
of  view  the  fitness  is  the  result  of  the  slow,  unconscious 
action  of  environment  on  organ,  producing  in  the  course 
of  ages  development  from  a  crude  condition  to  a  very  high 
state  of  perfection.  While  thus  accounting  for  all  cases  of 
useful  adaptation,  the  theory  claims  to  have  this  advantage 
over  the  old  teleological  view  of  the  world,  that  it  can 
explain  such  phenomena  as  are  presented  in  rudimentary 
and  useless  organs,  which  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  being 
made  by  design. 

Some  scientific  writers  have  sought  to  bring  discredit 
on  the  teleological  view  of  the  world  by  pointing  out 
defects  in  organs  which,  on  that  view,  would  have  to  be 
regarded  as  instances  of  blundering  on  the  part  of  the 
Creator.  The  eye,  formerly  a  favourite  theme  for  the 
teleologist,  has  been  carefully  studied  in  this  controversial 
interest.  Generally  the  tendency  of  physical  inquiry  has 
been  to  enlarge  the  sphere  of  the  unintentional  in  natura 
Thus  a  well-known  writer,  himself  a  theist,  and  very  com- 
petent to  speak  on  the  topic,  remarks :  "  It  is  not  in 
accordance  with  the  facts  of  experience  that  all  parts  of 
nature  point  to  ideal  significance  and  definite  aims. 
Along  with  a  thousand  appearances  which  give  this  im- 
pression go  a  thousand  others  which  look  like  aimless  by- 
products of  an  accidental  self-formed  combination  of  atoms^ 


AGNOSTICISM.  163 

which  by  no  means  ought  to  arise  under  a  preconceived 
plan,  and  which  have  arisen  and  maintained  themselves  in 
being  because  they  did  not  contradict  the  mechanical 
conditions  of  continued  existence."  * 

The  ontological  argument  infers  the  existence  of  God 
from  the  idea  of  Him  necessarily  entertained  by  the 
human  mind.  The  idea  we  cannot  help  forming  of  God 
is  that  of  a  Being  than  which  a  higher  cannot  be  conceived, 
absolutely  perfect  in  all  respects.  Into  this  conception 
existence  necessarily  enters  as  an  element,  for  a  supposed 
highest,  most  perfect  Being  not  conceived  as  existing 
would  not  be  the  highest  conceivable.  Therefore  a  most 
perfect  Being  exists.  Such  is  the  gist  of  the  argument  as 
first  formulated  by  Anselm.  It  wears  a  subtle  scholastic 
air,  which  puzzles  the  mind  and  makes  it  difficult  to  decide 
whether  to  regard  it  as  a  very  profound  and  conclusive 
piece  of  reasoning,  or  as  a  sample  of  ratiocinative  trifling. 
On  the  whole,  one  inclines  to  the  view  of  Kant,  who,  in  his 
criticism  of  this  argument,  while  conceding  that  the  idea 
of  existence  entered  into  the  idea  of  the  most  perfect 
Being,  argued  that  the  idea  no  more  involves  the  reality  of 
existence  than  the  notion  of  a  hundred  dollars  in  my  mind 
proves  that  I  have  them  in  my  purse.' 

Through  lengthened  and  continuous  criticism  of  these 
famous  arguments,  it  has  come  to  pass  that  in  their  old 
forms  they  are  no  longer  available,  and  that  they  must 
therefore  either  be  abandoned  or  transformed.  Some 
pursue  the  one  course,  some  the  other.  It  was  not  to  be 
expected  that  so  valuable  a  line  of  proof  as  that  supplied 
in  the  second  of  the  three  would  be  lightly  given  up  by 
theists,  and  accordingly  efforts  have  been  made  recently 
to  restate  the  "  design  argument "  so  as  to  fit  it  to  the 
present  condition  of  scientific  knowledge  and  thought 
Those  who  have  laboured  in  this  sphere  have  striven  to 
show  that  accepting  the  modern  doctrine  of  evolution  and 

*  Lotze's  Mikrolcosmus,  Bd.  II.  p.  ^. 

*  Kritik  der  retiim  r«rmH(/l,  p.  400. 


154  APOLOGETICS. 

the  account  which  it  gives  of  the  order  and  method  of 
creation,  there  is  still  ample  scope  for  an  argument  which 
aims  at  proving  that  the  world  has  heen  made,  and  its 
upward  development  guided,  by  an  almighty,  wise,  and 
beneficent  Creator.*  Oifhers  have  sought  a  foundation  for 
their  theistic  convictions  in  entirely  different  directions. 
Abandoning  the  region  of  teleology  to  the  tender  mercies 
of  sceptical  scientists,  they  have  justified  belief  in  God 
either  by  an  appeal  to  the  facts  of  the  moral  world,  or  by 
an  analysis  of  self-consciousness ;  in  the  one  case  following 
Kant,  in  the  other  Hegel.  Kant,  failing  to  find  any  sure 
trace  of  God  in  the  region  within  which  the  theoretic 
reason  bears  sway,  turned  to  the  domain  of  practical 
reason,  and  found  there  as  an  actual  existence  the  Being 
who  had  hitherto  been  only  a  regulative  idea.  Virtue  and 
happiness  ought  to  correspond,  but  happiness  depends 
largely  on  external  conditions  over  which  we  have  no 
control ;  therefore  we  must  postulate  a  moral  Governor 
who  is  able  to  bring  the  order  of  nature  into  harmony 
with  the  moral  world — such  was  the  gist  of  the  argument 
which  certified  for  him  the  reality  of  Deity.  To  some  it 
has  appeared  not  less  weak  than  the  arguments  it  super- 
seded, as,  e.g.,  to  Strauss,  who  criticises  it  in  these  terms: 
"  The  agreement  of  vii'tue  and  happiness  from  which  the 
argument  starts  is  in  one  respect,  in  the  inner  man, 
already  present;  that  the  two  should  be  harmonised  in 
outward  conditions  is  our  natural  wish  and  rightful 
endeavour ;  but  the  ever  incomplete  realisation  of  the 
wish  is  to  be  found  not  in  the  postulate  of  a  Devx  ex 
machind,    but   in   a    correct  view   of   the   world  and    of 

*  Among  those  who  deserve  honourable  mention  here  ue  Flint  {Theiam) 
and  Martineau  {A  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.).  They  have  at  least  tried  well, 
whatever  may  be  thought  of  their  success.  With  their  contributions  may 
be  associated  that  of  Kennedy,  who,  in  the  Donellan  Lectures  for  1888-S9, 
strives  to  show  that  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  validity  of  the  design 
argument  in  other  spheres,  it  still  holds  in  the  region  of  the  beautiful,  which 
it  is  contended  cannot  be  accounted  for  on  Darwiniao  priaciplok  Vid^ 
Lecture  iv. 


AGNOSTICISM.  166 

fortune.**  *  Nevertheless  for  many  the  "  moral  argument  " 
of  the  great  critical  philosopher  in  one  form  or  another 
remains  the  sheet-anchor  of  faith.  A  recent  apologetic 
writer  of  the  Neo-Kantian  school  thus  indicates  his  pre- 
ference foi  it  as  compared  with  the  "  design  argument " : 

"  The  rationalising  mode  of  viewing  the  world  starts  from 
the  teleological  order.  Finding  in  the  world  interrelated 
ends  and  means,  while  in  the  things  themselves  ia  neither 
consciousness  nor  will,  it  infers  an  intelligent  wise  Originator 
and  Guide  of  all  things.  It  is  the  very  soul  of  this  point  of 
view  that  it  understands  and  knows  how  to  interpret  the 
means  in  single  instances,  whilst  it  becomes  uncertain  aa 
soon  as  it  attempts  to  complete  itself  through  the  recognition 
of  a  supreme  all-dominating  idea  of  an  aim.  The  Christian's 
faith  in  Providence  inverts  the  point  of  view.  Its  starting- 
point  is  not  the  world  as  exhibiting  the  aspect  of  design,  but 
the  certainty  of  divine  love,  which  has  chosen  him  from 
eternity,  and  therefore  orders  all  so  that  it  must  promote  his 
best  interest.  Not  the  teleological  connection  of  things  and 
events  is  the  object  of  his  contemplation,  but  the  divine 
purpose  to  confer  on  him  blessednesa"  ' 

For  writers  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  Hegelian  philo- 
sophy, the  chief  source  of  the  knowledge  of  God  is  the 
self-consciousness  of  man,  or  the  nature  of  human  thought 
The  line  of  proof  may  be  said  to  be  a  modification  of  the 

*  Der  alte  und  der  neue  Olaube,  p.  119. 

•  Kaftan,  Die  Wahrheit  der  Christlichen  Religion,  p.  60.  I*  *•  oharaoter- 
iatic  of  Kaftan  and  the  school  of  theology  to  which  he  beiougs,  that  of 
Ritschl,  to  restrict  the  function  of  theology  to  showing  how  for  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Christian  community  the  religious  view  of  the  world,  as  existing 
for  the  sake  of  the  kingdom  of  God  and  the  realisation  of  the  good,  in  possible. 
Attempts  either  at  proving  from  the  general  non-ethical  features  of  the 
world  the  existence  of  God,  or  at  deducing  from  the  idea  of  God  these 
features,  such  writers  as  Kaftan  and  Hermann  (Die  Metaphyaik  in  der 
Theologie,  1876  ;  Der  Verkehr  der  Christen  mit  seinem  Oott,  1890)  regard 
as  extraneous,  injurious,  and  even  incompetent.  They  would  be  agnostics 
but  for  Christ,  whose  presence  as  a  fact  in  this  world,  through  His  sinlessnesa 
and  His  faith  in  a  Power  bent  on  realising  the  good,  brings  light  where  other- 
wise deepest  darkness  would  brood.  With  the  stress  laid  on  Chriat  one 
ean  cordially  sympathise,  but  surely  if  Christ's  idea  of  Qod  be  tnie  then 
■hoold  be  something  in  the  world  to  rerify  it  t 


156  APOLOGETIOS. 

ontological  argument.  It  is  an  inference  from  thought  to 
being ;  not  merely  from  the  thought  of  God  as  the  most 
perfect  being  to  His  existence,  but  from  the  very  nature  of 
thought  in  general  to  the  Great  Eternal  Thinker.  God  is 
very  near  us,  on  this  view.  We  do  not  need  to  roam  the 
world  over  in  quest  of  proofs  that  the  world  was  made  by 
a  Being  of  infinite  skill ;  we  have  only  to  consider  what  is 
involved  in  being  conscious  of  ourselves,  or  in  a  single  act 
of  thinking.  For  the  consciousness  of  self  involves  the 
consciousness  of  a  not-self.  Self  and  not-self  are  thus,  in 
every  act  of  consciousness,  at  once  opposed  and  embraced 
in  a  higher  unity.  Consciousness  posits  a  self,  a  not-self, 
and  a  higher  Being  in  whom  the  two  opposites  meet  and 
are  reconciled.  "  Thus  all  our  conscious  life  rests  on  and 
implies  a  consciousness  that  is  universal.  "We  cannot 
think  save  on  the  presupposition  of  a  thought  or  conscious- 
ness which  is  the  unity  of  thought  and  being,  or  on  which 
all  individual  thought  and  existence  rest."^  Nor  is  it 
alone  in  our  highest  thoughts  that  the  Universal  Thinker 
is  revealed.  He  is  present  in  the  humblest  act  of  percep- 
tion. "What  we  have  to  recognise  in  all  our  perceptions  of 
the  external  world  is  an  animal  organism,  which  has  its 
history  in  time,  gradually  becoming  "  the  vehicle  of  an 
eternally  complete  consciousness."*  To  this  eternally  com- 
plete consciousness  the  system  of  relations  which  constitute 
the  universe  is  ever  present  in  its  totality  as  an  object  of 
contemplation  ;  through  our  human  consciousness  it  attains 
to  knowledge  of  the  system  piecemeal  by  a  gradual  process. 
It  would  serve  no  purpose  to  comment  on  these  positions,  in 
the  way  either  of  explanation  or  of  criticism.  To  those  within 
the  school  they  seem  clear  and  certain  ;  to  those  without  they 
are  apt  to  appear  abstruse,  unintelligible,  and  baseless.' 

*  Principal  Gaird,  An  Introduetiom  to  the  PkHoaopky  <^  BdigitM,  ffk 
181,  132. 

*  Green,  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  p.  72. 

*  For  a  criticism  of  the  views  of  the  British  Neo-Eantian  school  of  phflo 
Bophy,  vide  Yeitch's  Knovring  and  Being,  and  Seth's  Hegelianigm  and 
Peraonality. 


AGNOSTICISM.  167 

When  one  considers  the  facts  connected  with  the  history 
o(  theistic  evidence:  how  few  arguments  command  the 
general  assent  even  of  theists,  how  much  the  line  of 
proof  adopted  depends  on  the  advocate's  philosophic  view- 
point, and  how  little  respect  the  rival  schools  of  philosophy 
pay  to  all  methods  of  establishing  the  common  faith  but 
their  own,  he  is  tempted  to  think  that  that  faith  is  without 
sure  foundation,  and  that  the  agnostic  is  right  when  he 
asserts  that  knowledge  of  God  is  unattainable.  But  there 
is  another  way  of  looking  at  the  matter  which  deserves 
serious  attention.  While  dififering  as  to  what  proofs  are 
valid  and  valuable,  all  theists  are  agreed  as  to  the  thing  to 
be  proved :  that  God  is,  and  to  a  certain  extent  what  God 
is.  This  harmony  in  belief  ought  to  weigh  more  in  our 
judgment  than  the  variation  in  evidence.  It  suggests  the 
thought  that  the  belief  in  God  is  antecedent  to  evidence, 
and  that  in  our  theistic  reasonings  we  formulate  proof  of  a 
foregone  conclusion  innate  and  inevitable.  How  otherwise 
can  it  be  explained  that  men  who  have  demolished  what 
have  passed  for  the  strongest  arguments  for  the  theistic 
creed  are  not  content  to  be  done  with  it,  but  hold  on  to 
the  conviction  that  God  is,  on  grounds  which  to  all  others 
but  themselves  appear  weak  and  whimsical  ?  Thus  a 
recent  writer,  after  searching  in  vain  the  whole  universe  of 
matter  and  of  mind  for  traces  of  Deity,  finds  rest  at  last 
for  his  weary  spirit  in  this  train  of  thought :  There  is  such 
a  thing  as  error,  but  error  is  inconceivable  unless  there  be 
such  a  thing  as  truth,  and  truth  is  inconceivable  unless 
there  be  a  seat  of  truth,  an  infinite  all-including  Thought 
or  Mind,  therefore  such  a  Mind  exists.  That  Mind  is 
God,  the  "infinite  Seer,"  whose  nature  it  is  to  think, 
not  to  act.  "No  power  it  is  to  be  resisted,  no  plan- 
maker  to  be  foiled  by  fallen  angels,  nothing  finite, 
nothing  striving,  seeking,  losing,  altering,  growing  weary; 
the  AU-Enfolder  it  is,  and  we  know  its  name.  Not 
Heart,  nor  Love,  though  these  also  are  in  it  and  of  it; 
Thought  it  is,  and   all  things   are  for  Thought^  aiyl   in 


1 58  APOLOOSnoS. 

it  we  live  and  move."  *     How  weak  the  proof  here,  but 

how  strong  the  conviction !  So  it  is,  more  or  less,  with 
us  alL  In  our  formal  argumentation  we  feebly  and 
blunderingly  try  to  assign  reasons  for  a  belief  that  is 
rooted  in  our  being.  In  perusing  works  by  others  devoted 
to  the  advocacy  of  theism,  we  are  conscious  of  disappoint- 
ment, and  possibly  even  of  doubt  suggested  rather  than  of 
faith  established,  only  to  recover  serene  and  strong  convic- 
tion when  the  book  is  forgotten.'  It  would  seem  as  if  the 
way  of  wisdom  were  to  abstain  from  all  attempts  at  proving 
the  divine  existence,  and,  assuming  as  a  datum  that  God  is, 
to  restrict  our  inquiries  to  what  He  is.  Without  pronounc- 
ing dogmatically  as  to  the  incompetency  of  any  other  method 
of  procedure,  I  shall  here  adopt  this  policy,  and  confine 
myself  in  the  remainder  of  this  chapter  to  a  few  hints  in 
answer  to  the  question.  How  far  is  the  Christian  idea  of 
God  "  a  hypothesis  which  all  we  know  tends  to  verify  "  ? 

Christ  taught  that  God  is  a  Father  and  that  man  is  His 
son,  and  that  it  is  a  leading  purpose  of  God  to  establish 
between  Himself  and  men  a  kingdom  of  filial  relations  and 
loving  fellowship.  This  doctrine  implies  that  there  is  a 
close  af&nity  of  nature  between  God  and  man,  that,  indeed, 
the  most  direct  and  certain  way  to  the  knowledge  of  God 
is  through  human  nature.  Now  the  view  thus  suggested 
of  the  man-like  nature  of  God  is  in  accordance  with  the 
teaching  of  the  most  recent  science.  Man,  according  to 
science  not  less  than  Scripture,  stands  at  the  head  of  crea- 
tion as  we  know  it.  He  is  the  crown  and  consummation 
of  the  evolutionary  process,  by  the  frank  admission  of  one 
of  the  most  brilliant  expounders  of  the  modern  theory. 
"  So  far  from  degrading  humanity,"  writes  Mr.  Fiske,  "  or 
putting  it  on  a  level  with  the  animal  world  in  general,  the 
doctrine  of  evolution  shows  us  distinctly  for  the  first  time 

*  Royce,  The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,  p.  435. 

•  Lipsius  says  that  the  various  "proofs"  for  the  being  of  God  are  no 
proofs,  but  only  the  various  nionieiita  of  the  elevation  of  the  human  spirit 
to  Gkxi,  and  that  their  root  is  not  d  priori  thought,  but  reli^oos  experience. 
— Lehrhnch  der  Dogniatik,  p.  281. 


AGNOSTICISM.  159 

how  the  creation  and  the  perfecting  of  man  is  the  goal 
towards  which  Nature's  work  has  been  tending  from  tha 
first  We  can  now  see  clearly  that  our  new  knowledge 
enlarges  tenfold  the  significance  of  human  life,  and  makes 
it  seem  more  than  ever  the  chief  object  of  divine  care,  the 
consummate  fruition  of  that  creative  energy  which  is  mani- 
fested throughout  the  knowable  universe."  ^  It  is  a  reason- 
able inference  that  from  the  creature  who  occupies  this 
distinguished  place  something  may  be  learned  concerning 
the  nature  of  the  Creator.  The  author  just  quoted,  indeed, 
protests  against  this  inference,  and  maintains,  as  we  have 
seen,  that  God's  nature  cannot  be  known  from  one  part  of 
the  creation  more  than  from  another.  But  this  view  is 
compatible  only  with  such  a  conception  of  the  universe  as 
that  of  Spinoza — a  mere  monotonous  wilderness  of  being 
in  which  all  things  are  equally  significant  or  insignificant, 
not  to  be  distinguished  as  lower  and  higher.  This  is  not 
the  conception  of  the  evolution  theory,  which  teaches  us 
to  regard  the  universe  as  the  result  of  a  process  which, 
beginning  with  a  fiery  cloud,  passed  through  many  suc- 
cessive stages  in  an  ever-ascending  scale,  from  star-vapour 
to  stars,  from  dead  planets  to  life,  from  plants  to  animals, 
from  apes  to  men.  It  is  in  keeping  with  this  grand  con- 
ception to  see  in  the  final  stage  of  the  process  a  key  to  the 
meaning  of  the  whole,  and  in  man  a  revelation  of  God  as 
a  Being  possessing  mind  and  guided  by  purpose.^ 

If  the  Creator  be  not  only  like  man  in  nature,  but  had 
man  in  view  from  the  first  as  the  end  of  creation,  we  may 
expect  to  find  traces  of  a  purposeful  guidance  of  the  evolu- 

*  Man's  Destiny f  p.  116.  The  same  dootrine  is  very  strongly  asserted  by 
•nether  American  writer.  Le  Conte  says:  "Without  spirit-immortality 
this  beautiful  cosmos,  which  has  been  developing  into  increasing  beauty  for 
so  many  millions  of  years,  when  its  evolution  has  run  its  course  and  all  ii 
over,  would  be  precisely  as  if  it  had  never  been — an  idle  dream,  an  idiot  tal« 
signifying  nothing." — Evolution  and  its  Relation  to  Religious  Thought,  p. 
329.  Le  Conte  is  an  enthusiastic  advocate  of  the  evolution  theory  of  crea- 
tion, but  also  a  not  less  enthusiastic  defender  of  Christian  theism. 

2  Vide  The  Miraculous  Element  in  the  Gospels,  chap,  i.,  where  the  line  ol 
thought  here  indicated  is  more  fully  developed. 


160  APOLOGETICS. 

tionary  process  so  as  to  insure  that  it  should  reach  its  end 
There  is  reason  to  believe  that  such  traces  are  not  wanting, 
and  recent  tlieistic  writers  have  done  good  service  in 
pointing  them  out,  and  in  so  doing  have  furnished  the 
restatement  of  the  teleological  argument  rendered  necessary 
by  the  dislodgment  of  it  from  its  old  ground  through  the 
influence  of  the  Darwinian  theory  as  to  the  origin  of  species. 
The  details  cannot  be  gone  into  hera  Suffice  it  to  say 
that  the  end  has  been  reached :  man  is  here,  and  it  has 
been  reached  through  a  steadily  upward  process,  not  as  a 
matter  of  course,  but  through  manifold  risks  of  miscarriage, 
which  have  not  been  escaped  by  happy  accident,  but  by  crea- 
tive control  There  is  no  known  law  of  necessary  advance- 
ment, no  reason  in  the  nature  of  the  case  why  variation 
should  proceed  in  an  upward  direction.  "  Apart  from  the 
internal  constitution  of  an  organism  having  been  so  planned, 
and  its  external  circumstances  so  arranged  as  to  favour 
the  one  rather  than  the  other,  its  variations  could  not  have 
been  more  towards  self-perfection  than  self-destruction."* 

The  Christian  doctrine  of  God,  as  in  nature  like  man,  is 
in  accordance  with  the  latest  teaching  of  science  regarding 
the  nature  oi  force.  According  to  that  teaching,  all  physical 
forces  are  convertible  into  each  other,  and  are  all  but 
diverse  manifestations  of  one  ultimate  force.  Thus  the 
question  arises.  What  is  the  nature  of  that  ultimate  force  ? 
The  agnostic  replies,  It  is  inscrutable.  But  reason  suggests, 
What  if  the  Power  that  is  at  work  in  the  universe  be  like 
that  form  of  power  with  which  we  are  most  familiar,  the 
power  exercised  by  the  being  who  stands  at  the  head  of 
creation,  and  reveals  the  mind  of  the  Creator — Will-power  ? 

Once  more,  if  God,  as  Christ  teaches,  be  like  man.  He 
possesses  not  only  Intellect,  Purpose,  and  Will,  but  moral 
character.  Many  have  seen  in  the  moral  nature  of  man, 
the  conscience,  a  powerful  witness  to  the  existence  of  God. 

*  Flint,  Theism,  p.  202.  For  a  spirited  attempt  to  base  a  theistio  aigo* 
ment  on  the  evolutionary  process  antecedent  to  the  introduction  of  life^ 
VM^e  Chapman's  Preorganic  Evolution  and  the  Biblical  Idea  <^  Ood,  1891. 


AONOSTICISM.  161 

Without  calling  in  question  the  validity  of  the  argument, 
my  present  purpose  is  to  point  to  the  human  sense  of 
right  and  wrong  as  showing  not  that  God  is,  but  what  He 
is.  Man's  place  in  the  universe,  as  assigned  to  him  by 
science,  makes  it  legitimate  and  reasonable  to  do  so.  And 
history  confirms  the  inference  to  morality  in  God  suggested 
by  an  inspection  of  man's  moral  nature.  Men  of  all 
schools,  pessimists  excepted,  are  agreed  that  a  moral  order 
is  revealed  in  the  story  of  the  human  race.  Carlyle  and 
Arnold  interpret  its  lesson  in  much  the  same  way  as  the 
Hebrew  prophets.  Whether  the  Power  that  makes  for 
righteousness  be  conscious  and  personal  or  otherwise  may 
be  a  subject  of  dispute  or  doubt.  The  main  point  is  that 
the  Power  exists — imperfectly  manifested,  it  may  be,  a 
tendency  rather  than  a  completely  realised  fact,  yet 
indubitably  there.  As  revealed  in  human  affairs,  it 
possesses  some  noticeable  characteristics.  It  is  slow  in 
action,  especially  on  the  punitive  side,  and  it  seems,  not 
now  and  then,  as  if  by  accident,  but  with  all  the  regularity 
of  a  law,  to  treat  the  best  of  men  as  if  they  were  the  worst, 
making  the  good  suffer  as  the  bad  ought.  Prophetically 
interpreted,  and  expressed  in  religious  language,  these  facts 
mean :  that  God  is  patient,  slow  to  anger,  prone  to  pardon, 
giving  evil  men  ample  space  to  repent;  and  that  in  the 
moral  world  the  good  are  called  to  the  heroic  function  of 
redeemers,  propagators  of  righteousness,  and  as  such  have 
to  suffer,  the  just  by  and  for  the  unjust  In  other  words,  the 
moral  order  of  the  world  is  not  only  a  reign  of  retributive 
justice,  but  a  reign  of  grace,  under  which  love  is  the  supreme 
law,  with  full  scope  for  the  display  of  its  nature  as  a  spirit  of 
BGlf-8acrifice,and  the  stream  of  tendency  is  steadily  towards  the 
grand  consummation,  the  bringing  in  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 
In  the  foregoing  observations,  man,  his  nature  and  posi- 
tion in  the  universe,  is  made  the  basis  of  the  theistlc 
argument  And  this  is  as  it  ought  to  be.  Science  aima 
at  explaining  man  from  the  world,  but  religion  explains 
the   world,  in  its  first  Cause  and   last  End,  from  mao. 

h 


162  APOLOGETlCBi. 

The  two  attitudes  are  not  incompatible,  but  their  tend- 
encies are  as  diverse  as  their  points  of  view.  The  one 
tends  to  minimise,  the  other  to  magnify,  the  peculiarity  of 
man.  The  patrons  of  the  two  methods  are  apt  to  be 
unjust  to  each  other,  either  undervaluing  the  aim  of  the 
other,  and  remaining  comparatively  unimpressed  by  his 
lines  of  proof.  In  the  case  of  the  scientific  man  this 
defect  may  appear  specially  excusable.  For  the  demon- 
strations offered  by  the  representatives  of  the  religious 
view  of  the  world  are  not  of  that  strict  order  to  which  the 
scientist  is  accustomed.  The  results  arrived  at  are  not 
logically  inevitable  conclusions  from  absolutely  certain 
premises.  They  are  value  -  judgments  resting  on  moral 
grounds,  and  involving  an  exercise  of  freedom,  or,  to  speak 
more  correctly,  a  bias  due  to  the  esteem  in  which  we  hold 
man  as  a  moral  personality,  and  to  the  habit  of  regarding 
his  moral  nature  and  destiny  as  the  key  to  the  riddle  of 
the  universe.  A  man  can  be  an  agnostic  if  he  pleases. 
Faith  in  God  is  an  affair  of  personal  conviction.  No 
offence  is  meant  by  this  statement.  It  is  not  intended  to 
insinuate  that  unbelief  is  the  effect  of  an  unsatisfactory 
moral  condition.  It  may  be  frankly  acknowledged  that 
many  worthy  men  are  agnostics,  as  many  worthless  men 
are  theists.  Nevertheless  it  remains  true  that  it  is  with 
the  heart  man  believeth.  God  is  the  postulate  of  a  soul 
that  finds  the  world  without  God  utterly  dark  and  un- 
intelligible. And  those  who  believe  in  God  most  firmly 
best  know  what  it  is  to  doubt  Faith  is  the  result  of  a 
successful  struggle  against  all  that  tends  to  produce  reli- 
gious atrophy,  including  too  exclusive  devotion  to  scientific 
habits  of  thought,  which  may  turn  the  mind  into  "a 
machine  for  grinding  out  general  laws  out  of  large  colleo- 
tions  of  facts,"  and  prove  fatal  not  only  to  religious  faith, 
but  even  to  all  taste  for  poe^,  music,  and  picturea^ 

1  For  an  instractiTe  example  of  this,  vieU  The  Lift  and  Lttten  i^OhaHm 
Darwin,  L  813.  For  remarks  on  the  candid  confession  of  Mr.  Darwii^ 
9ide  Aubrey  L.  Moon's  Se         and  the  Faith^  yp.  816-218. 


AGNOSTICISM.  163 

The  agnostic,  however,  need  not  be  altogether  without 
God.  There  remains  for  him  the  alisolute  unknown 
Eeality,  deanthropomorphised  and  devoid  of  all  qualities, 
capable  of  awakening  an  awe  like  that  produced  by  a 
sandy  desert.  For  more  thoroughgoing  agnostics  who 
profess  nescience  as  regards  even  the  existence  of  the 
ultimate  Eeality,  and  for  whom  the  universe  is  reduced 
to  mere  phenomenalism,  there  is  available  as  an  object  of 
worship  or  service  Comte's  Supreme  Being — Humanity,  the 
"  subjective  synthesis "  which  meets  the  demands  of  the 
heart,  in  absence  of  the  objective  synthesis,  wherein  the 
universe  finds  its  centre  of  unity,  denied  by  the  intellect.* 

*  For  an  acute  criticism  of  the  religion  of  humanity,  vide  Martinean'a 
Types  of  Ethical  Theory,  i.  472.  Vide  also  Professor  Edward  Caird's 
Social  Philosophy  and  Religion  of  Comte,  where  the  religion  of  humanity 
is  criticised  from  the  view-point  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy,  and  it  is  argaed 
"that  the  true  synthesis  of  philosophy  must  be  objective  as  well  as  subjective, 
fend  that  there  can  be  no  religion  of  honuaity  whidi,  is  aot  •Iw)  •  r«U,gkm  of 
SM  "  (Fr«£Me.  p.  zrii). 


BOOK   IL 

THE  HISTORICAL  PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITT. 
CHAPTEB  1 

THB  SOUROBS. 

LiTERATUBE. — Ewald,  Die  Geschichte  des  Volkes  Israel^ 
Band  I. ;  Graf,  Die  Oeschichtlicken  Biicher  des  Alien  Testa- 
ments ;  Keuss,  La  Bible  (new  translation,  with  Introductions 
and  Commentaries) ;  Kuenen,  Origin  and  Composition  of  the 
Hexateuch  (translated  from  the  Dutch) ;  Wellhausen,  The 
History  of  Israel  (including  Prolegomena  to  the  History  of 
Israel  and  article  "  Israel "  from  the  JEncyc.  Brit.)  ;  Bissell 
(of  Hartford  Theol.  Sem.),  The  Pentateuch:  its  Origin  and 
Structure  (Conservative) ;  Driver,  Introduction  to  the  Litera- 
twre  of  the  Old  Testament. 

On  a  comprehensive  view,  the  whole  previous  history  of 
the  world  and  of  its  religion  might  be  said  to  be  a  divinely 
ordered  preparation  for  the  coming  of  Christ.  But  in  the 
present  work  our  attention  must  be  concentrated  mainly  on 
the  people  from  whom  as  concerning  the  flesh  Christ  came. 
This  limitation,  while  bringing  the  subject  within  man- 
ageable dimensions,  involves  no  serious  sacrifice  of  truth. 
For  Christ  was  emphatically  a  Jew  in  mind  as  well  as  in 
body.  So  far  as  His  religious  character  is  capable  of 
being  explained  by  historic  antecedents,  it  is  sufficiently 
accounted  for  by  the  religion  of  Israel,  without  reference  to 
any  supposed  influence  emanating  from  other  quarters,  as, 

1«4 


THE   SOTTROES.  166 

•^^  the  phflosopliy  of  Greece.*  What  we  have  therefore  to 
do  is  to  make  ourselves  acquainted  with  the  religious 
history  of  that  remarkable  race  to  which  belonged  "the 
adoption,  and  the  glory,  and  the  covenants,  and  the 
giving  of  the  law,  and  the  service  of  God,  and  the 
promises." 

The  sources  of  this  knowledge  are  the  ffehrew  Scriptures. 
The  characteristics  of  these  writings  as  the  literature  of 
Revelation  will  come  up  for  consideration  at  a  later  stage; 
meantime  we  regard  them  simply  as  a  channel  of  informa- 
tion concerning  the  people  who  physically  and  spiritually 
were  the  ancestors  of  Jesus.  In  using  them  for  this  pur- 
pose, the  apologists  of  the  present  day  are  in  a  very  dif- 
ferent position  from  that  of  those  who  lived  before  modern 
Biblical  Criticism  took  its  rise.  Then  to  exhibit  the  his- 
torical preparation  for  Christianity  was  a  comparatively 
simple  task.  Accepting  the  Jewish  tradition  respecting 
dates  and  authorship  of  books,  the  apologist  opened  the 
Old  Testament  and  read  it  as  the  plain  uncultured  man 
reads  it  still.  Thence  he  drew  out  with  unsuspecting 
confidence  the  history  of  Redemption  in  its  various  stages ; 
beginning  with  the  quaint  picturesque  simplicity  of  the 
patriarchal  age,  the  era  of  the  Promise ;  passing  on  to  the 
lawgiving  under  Moses,  who  was  conceived  to  be  the 
human  author  of  all  the  laws  recorded  in  the  Pentateuch ; 
advancing  through  the  chequered  narrative  of  judges  and 
kings — mostly  transgressors  of  the  God-given  law,  and  by 
their  conduct  helping  to  justify  Paul's  view  of  the  law  as 
given  only  for  the  knowledge  of  sin — to  the  splendid  period 
of  the  Prophets,  who  grasped  the  full  significance  of  the 
promise  and  purpose  of  God  concerning  Israel,  and  taught 
the  people  to  fear  Jehovah,  to  do  His  will,  and  to  trust  in 
His  mercy,  and  warned  them  of  coming  judgment  upon 
persistent  disobedience.     Thereon  followed  in  due  course 

*  It  is  well  known  that  Dr.  Ferdinand  Baur  represented  Christ  as  indebted 
indirectly  for  His  conception  of  man  as  a  moral  tribject  to  the  Socratic 
philosophy.      Vide  his  Geschichte  der  Ohristlichen  Kirche,  i.  10-16. 


166  APOLooBnca 

the  story  of  the  exile,  of  the  restoration,  of  the  reKgious 

revival  under  Ezra,  and  of  the  long  night  of  legalism 
which  ensued  when  the  sun  of  prophecy  set,  till  at  length 
the  dawn  came  with  the  advent  of  Jesus,  in  whom  promise, 
law,  and  prophecy  all  found  their  fulfilment 

It  is  an  altogether  imposing  picture  of  Divine  Provi- 
dence marching  on  with  a  redemptive  purpose  from  the 
call  of  Abraham  in  the  grey  dawn  of  time  to  the  coming 
of  Him  through  whom  the  whole  earth  was  to  be  blessed 
throughout  an  unending  era  of  grace.  But  criticism  has 
rudely  assailed  the  foundations  of  this  historical  construc- 
tion. It  tells  us  that  the  narratives  concerning  the 
patriarchs  cannot  be  implicitly  accepted  as  history,  that 
Genesis,  the  book  of  origins,  was  not  written  by  Moses, 
but  is  of  much  later  date,  and  of  composite  nature,  a 
story  woven  out  of  separate  documents,  with  diverse 
literary  characteristics,  as,  e.g.,  distinct  names  for  God,  one 
preferring  the  title  Jehovah,  another  Elohim}  The  order 
in  which  these  two  documents  were  produced  is  as  yet 
an  unsolved  problem,  some  critics  regarding  the  Elohistic 
document  as  prior  and  the  original  base  of  the  present 
composite  narrative,  others  holding  it  to  be  long  pos- 
terior, and  even  as  late  as  the  period  of  the  Babylonian 
exile.  The  Jehovist  document  most  critics  regard  as 
belonging  to  the  great  prophetic  period,  and  as  imbued 
with  the  prophetic   spirit.     To   it  we   owe  the  charming 

*  This  of  course  ia  a  very  inadequate  account  of  critical  views  as  to  the 
composition  of  Genesis.  Wten  the  matter  belonging  to  the  Elohistic  docu- 
ment has  been  removed,  it  is  found  on  close  examination  that  the  remainder 
Ib  not  homogeneous  in  structure.  It  resolves  into  two  parts,  in  one  of 
which  the  name  Elohim  is  used  (without  the  other  literary  characteristics  of 
the  Elohistic  document),  and  in  the  other  Jehovah.  These  are  regarded  as 
remnants  of  two  independent  narratives  by  authors  belonging  respectively  to 
the  northern  and  southern  kingdoms.  The  two  together,  as  used  in  Genesis 
and  elsewhere,  are  distinguished  as  JE  Irom  the  Elohist  document,  whose 
symbol  is  P  {Priests'  Code,  with  special  reference  to  the  ceremonial  sections 
in  Exodus,  Leviticus,  and  Numbers).  The  fact  of  there  being  two  Eloliists 
is  puzzliug  to  novices.  Vide  Driver's  Introduction  tn  the  LUei  ature  of  tin 
Old  Testament,  pp.  9-12. 


THE   SOURCES.  167 

stories  of  the  patriarchs,  which  we  are  to  take  not 
fts  exact  history,  but  as  the  embodiment  of  prophetic 
ideas. 

Modern  criticism  further  tells  us  that  the  collections  of 
laws  contained  in  the  books  of  the  Pentateuch  which 
follow  Genesis  are  for  the  most  part  post-Mosaic.  The 
only  exception  to  this  statement  with  regard  to  which 
there  is  anything  like  unanimity  is  the  Decalogue,  and 
even  to  it  a  Mosaic  origin  is  denied  by  some  leading 
critical  authorities.  At  least  three  distinct  strata  of  legis- 
lation, of  different  dates,  but  all  subsequent  to  the  time  of 
Moses,  as  written  compilations,  are  discovered  in  these  four 
books:  the  short  code  in  Ex.  xx.  22— xxiii  1 9,  designated 
in  Ex.  xxiv.  7  the  Book  of  the  Covenant;  the  more 
extended  body  of  laws  contained  in  Deuteronomy,  espe- 
cially in  chapters  xii-xxvi.,  distinguished  as  the  Deutero- 
nomie  Code;  and  the  large  collection  of  laws  relating  to 
religious  ritual,  uncleanness,  and  kindred  topics,  scattered 
throughout  the  middle  books  of  the  Pentateuch — Exodus, 
Leviticus,  Numbers  —  appropriately  called  the  Priestly 
Code.  Even  within  this  code  distinct  strata  are  recog- 
nised, the  group  of  laws  in  Lev.  iviii.-xxvL  being 
specially  recognised  as  outstanding,  and  called  with  refer- 
ence to  its  subject-matter  the  Law  of  Holiness.  It  is 
supposed  to  have  been  originally  a  separate  work,  and 
to  have  been  incorporated  in  the  priestly  code  by  the 
compiler. 

As  to  the  order  in  which  these  three  codes  came  into 
existence  critics  are  by  no  means  agreed.  There  is,  indeed, 
a  general  agreement  as  to  the  Book  of  the  Covenant  being 
the  earliest,  but  there  is  serious  difference  of  opinion  as  to 
the  relative  position  of  the  other  two.  During  the  earlier 
period  of  the  critical  movement,  the  opinion  prevailed  that 
the  priestly  code  was  prior  to  the  Deuteronomic,  finding 
ito  place  in  the  Elohistic  document,  which  was  supposed 
to  be  the  Orundsehrift,  or  basis  of  the  present  composite 
work   called   the   Pentateuch,   or   including  Joahoa   the 


168  APOLOGETICS. 

Hexateuch.*  But  more  recently  the  strong  drift  of  criti- 
cism has  been  towards  the  view  that  the  priestly  code  was 
the  latest  product  of  legal  literary  industry,  and  that  it 
did  not  take  shape  till  after  the  Babylonish  exile.  The 
Deuteronomic  code  is  believed  to  be  definitely  fixed  down 
to  a  certain  date  by  the  statement  in  2  Kings  xxii  10 
concerning  a  book  which  Hilkiah  the  high  priest  found  in 
the  house  of  the  Lord,  and  gave  to  Shaphan  the  scribe,  and 
which  Shaphan  read  to  King  Josiah.  This  book,  it  is  held, 
was  none  other  than  the  Deuteronomic  code,  not  merely 
found  but  composed  then,  somewhere  aboat  the  middle  of 
the  seventh  century  before  Christ, 

It  is  not  necessary  for  our  present  purpose  to  under- 
take the  elaborate  task  of  setting  forth  in  detail  the  grounds 
on  which  these  critical  views  rest.  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
two  questions  figure  prominently  in  the  argument :  those, 
viz.,  relating  to  the  restriction  of  worship  to  one  central 
sanctuary,  and  to  the  distinction  between  the  priests  and 
the  Levites.  By  reference  to  the  former  point,  the  order 
of  the  three  codes  is  determined  to  be,  first,  the  Book  of 
the  Covenant ;  second,  the  Deuteronomic  code ;  third,  the 
priestly.  The  argument  is :  in  the  Book  of  the  Covenant 
a  plurality  of  sanctuaries  is  recognised  as  legitimate ;  *  in 
the  Deuteronomic  code  one  central  sanctuary,  the  sole 
legitimate  place  of  worship,  is  insisted  on  with  an  emphasis 
and  iteration  which  imply  recent  innovation  on  old  custom; 
in  the  priestly  code  one  sanctuary  is  treated  as  a  matter  of 
course,  gainsaid  by  no  one,  and  held  to  be  as  ancient  as  the 
time  of  Moses.  By  reference  to  the  distinction  between 
priests  and  Levites,  it  is  held  by  Wellhausen  and  others 
to  be  easy  to  determine  the  relative  age  of  the  Deutero- 
nomic and  priestly  codes.  In  the  former  no  such  distinc- 
tion exists,  the  phrase  constantly  used  being  "  the  priests  the 

*  The  Uteraiy  direrBities  noticeable  In  the  book  of  Qeneaii,  reforred  to  ott 
p.  166,  run  throngh  the  Pentatenoh  and  Joshua,  so  that  P  and  JE  an 
■oTirces  not  only  for  Genesis,  bat  for  the  whole  Hazatanch. 

*  Vide  Ex.  zz.  24. 


THE   SOURCES.  169 

Levites  ** ;  in  the  latter  the  distinction  is  carefully  made,  a 
fact  naturally  pointing  to  later  legislative  changes.  That  the 
change  was  post-exilic  is  argued  from  a  significant  passage 
in  Ezekiel,  in  which  priests  and  Levites  are  still  spoken  of 
as  one,  but  an  intimation  is  given  of  future  differentiation 
based  on  the  misconduct  of  a  certain  class  of  Levitical 
priests,  those,  viz.,  who  had  served  at  heathen  sanctuaries. 
For  their  sin  they  are  to  be  degraded  into  mere  minis- 
terial drudges  at  the  sanctuary,  having  charge  at  the  gates 
and  slaying  the  sacrifices,  but  not  permitted  to  approach 
Jehovah  in  the  discharge  of  proper  priestly  functions.  On 
the  other  hand,  "  the  priests  the  Levites,  the  sons  of  Zadok, 
that  kept  the  charge  of  my  sanctuary  when  the  children  of 
Israel  went  astray  from  me,"  are  to  be  confirmed  in  their 
priestly  office  in  reward  of  their  fidelity.  Thus  henceforth 
there  shall  no  longer  be  priests  who  are  at  the  same  time 
Levites,  or  Levites  who  are  at  the  same  time  priests,  but 
two  orders  of  religious  officials,  a  higher  order  of  priests 
and  a  lower  order  of  Levites.* 

From  the  foregoing  brief  outline  it  will  be  seen  that 
the  effect  of  modern  criticism  on  the  mode  of  viewing  the 
religious  history  of  Israel  is  serious.  It  amounts  to  an 
inversion  of  the  order  subsisting  between  law  and  prophecy. 
Instead  of  saying,  the  law  and  the  prophets,  we  must  say, 
the  prophets  and  the  law.  The  law,  in  the  comprehensive 
sense,  was  not  given  by  Moses ;  it  came  not  till  the  great 
prophets  Micah,  Hosea,  Amos,  Isaiah  had  delivered  their 
message.  Their  scathing  criticisms  of  the  religious  services 
of  a  people  ungodly  in  life  are  therefore  not  to  be  regarded 
as  a  protest  against  the  exaltation  of  ritual,  legitimate, 
ancient,  and  even  divinely  given,  above  the  supreme  claims 
of  morality — a  declaration  that  to  obey  is  better  than  sacri- 
fice, however  important  sacrifice  in  its  own  place  may  be — 
but  as  indirect  yet  sure  evidence  that  a  priestly  code,  pur- 
porting to  be  of  Mosaic  origin,  was  not  then  in  existence. 
That  code,  we  are  given  to  understand,  could  not  have  pro- 

*  VieU  Ezek.  xliv.  »-16. 


170  APOLOGETICS. 

ceeded  from  Moses,  who,  as  is  iudicated  in  Deuteronomy 
and  in  Hosea,*  was  a  prophet  in  vocation  and  spirit,  and 
must  therefore,  like  all  the  prophets,  have  attached  more 
value  to  the  ethical  than  to  the  rituaL  It  belongs  rather 
to  the  post-prophetic  period,  to  the  time  when  the  spirit 
which  animated  the  great  prophets  began  to  lose  its  influence, 
and  the  legal  spirit  sought  to  usurp  its  place,  and  men 
under  its  guidance  strove  to  please  God  by  anxious  compli- 
ance with  innumerable  technical  rules;  in  a  word,  to  the  time 
of  the  return  from  exile  and  of  the  scribe  Ezra.  And  if  we 
are  to  take  a  critically  well-founded  view  of  the  religious 
development  of  Israel,  we  must  recognise  three  great  periods 
or  stages  in  the  onward  march :  Mosaism,  having  for  its 
salient  feature  the  Decalogue  ;  Prophetism,  true  to  Mosaism, 
and  carrying  it  on  to  higher  issues ;  Judaism,  not  without 
valuable  characteristics,  but  inaugurating  an  era  in  which 
the  prophetic  motto,  "to  obey  is  better  than  sacrifice," 
might  be  said  to  have  been  finally  transformed  into  "  sacri- 
fice the  sum  of  obedience." 

In  comparison  with  the  Law  and  the  Prophets,  the  Hagio- 
grapha  are  of  subordinate  importance  as  sources  for  a  study  of 
the  religion  of  Israel  Yet  from  some  of  the  books  contained 
in  this  division  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  and  very  specially 
from  the  Psalter,  much  can  be  learned  concerning  the  spiritual 
life  of  the  Jewish  people.  According  to  the  traditional  view, 
very  many  of  the  Psalms  are  of  Davidic  authorship,  and  ex- 
hibit a  type  of  religious  thought  and  feeling  prevailing  among 
devout  Israelites  as  far  back  as  the  eleventh  century  B.C. 
The  tendency  of  recent  criticism,  however,  has  been  greatly 
to  reduce  the  number  of  Psalms  belonging  to  so  early  a 
time,  and  to  assign  to  the  collection  as  a  whole  a  post-exilic 
origin.  According  to  this  view,  the  Psalter  is  to  be  regarded 
as  the  song-book  of  the  second  temple,  and  its  value  for  the 
history  of  Israel's  religion  consists  in  the  bright  light  which 
it  throws  on  the  inner  life  of  the  spirit  during  the  legal 
period.  It '.  *  pendant  to  the  history  of  Judaism. 
^  Dent.  xriiL  15  ;  Hosea  ziL  18. 


THE  SOURCES.  1*71 

A  very  important  question  now  arises  for  the  apologist. 
What  is  to  be  his  attitude  towards  these  critical  views  as 
to  the  authorship  and  dates  of  the  component  parts  of  Old 
Testament  literature  ?  To  this  question  it  may  be  answered, 
first,  that  the  apologist  is  not  called  upon  to  accept  the 
results  of  modern  criticism,  or  to  constitute  himself  an 
advocate  of  its  claims  to  scientific  certainty.  He  is  en- 
titled to  hold  himself  aloof  from  critical  dogmatism,  and  to 
keep  his  personal  opinions  in  a  state  of  suspense.  He  may 
reasonably  excuse  himself  from  coming  to  a  final  decision 
on  the  questions  raised  on  various  grounds.  He  may 
without  shame  plead  the  lack  of  an  expert's  knowledge. 
He  may  further  plead  that  the  discussion  and  solution  of 
critical  problems  do  not  fall  within  the  scope  of  general 
apologetic,  but  belong  to  a  distinct  theological  discipline, 
that  of  Biblical  Introduction.  Once  more,  he  may  plead  the 
unsettled  state  of  critical  opinion.  It  will  be  time  enough 
for  the  apologist  to  dogmatise  when  criticism  has  arrived  at 
the  stage  of  finality.  It  is  far  enough  from  having  reached 
that  stage  as  yet.  Not  to  mention  endless  diversity  of 
view  on  special  points,  there  are  broad  contrasts  between 
different  schools  even  with  reference  to  the  leading  critical 
problems.  One  set  of  critics  call  in  question  the  Mosaic 
origin  even  of  the  Decalogue,^  another  bring  under  the  cate- 
gory of  Mosaism,  not  only  the  Ten  Words,  but  the  principles 
common  to  the  various  legal  codes.*  Not  only  is  there 
conflict  between  critics  of  different  schools  regarding  the 
relative  priority  of  the  Deuteronomic  and  priestly  codes, 
but  instances  are  not  unknown  of  the  same  critic  changing 
his  mind  on  the  question.  Thus  Vatke,  who  in  1835 
in  his  great  work  on  the  Beligion  of  the  Old  Testament 
maintained  the  post-exilic  origin  of  the  priestly  code,  in  his 
posthumous  work  on  Introduction,  published  in  1886,  repre- 

'  So  Wellliausen,  who  thinks  that  it  perhaps  belongs  to  the  time  of 
Manasseh's  reign.  Vide  his  Prolegomena,  p.  486.  Kuenen,  on  the  other 
hand,  regards  Moses  as  the  author  of  the  Ten  Word*.  Vide  The  Religim  oj 
Israel,  p.  274. 

'''  So  Riehm,  'u  his  AUestamentliche  Theologie,  p.  67i 


172  APOLOGETICS. 

sents  it  as  prior  to  the  Beuteronomio  code,  viewing  it  at 

a  programme  of  reform,  an  ideal  legislation  not  actually 
realised  till  after  the  exile.*  Nor  are  the  contradictions  of 
criticism  confined  to  the  legal  portions  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. Even  with  reference  to  the  prophets  wide  con- 
trariety of  view  obtains.  The  majority  of  critics  indeed 
regard  it  as  beyond  doubt  that  not  a  few  of  the  prophetic 
writings  can  be  definitely  fixed  down  to  dates  antecedent  to 
the  exile.  But  there  have  not  been  wanting  men  with  suffi- 
cient hardihood  to  maintain  that  this  is  a  mistake,  and  that 
the  whole  Hebrew  Scriptures,  including  the  prophets,  are 
post-exilic,  and  show  us  merely  what  the  Jews  of  that  late 
period  believed  concerning  their  past  history.* 

For  these  reasons  and  in  these  circumstances  the  attitude 
of  the  apologist  must  necessarily  be  that  of  one  who  refuses 
to  be  deeply  committed  on  critical  questions.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  he  cannot  go  on  his  way  as  if  nothing  had 
happened,  or  as  if  he  had  never  heard  of  modem  higher 
criticism.  He  must  adjust  himself  to  the  new  situation. 
He  must  take  into  account  opinions  confidently  advanced 
by  others  for  which  he  declines  to  be  personally  respon- 
sible, to  the  extent  at  least  of  considering  how  far  they 
are  compatible  or  the  reverse  with  the  faith  he  is  concerned 
to  defend.  In  this  connection  it  is  incumbent  on  him, to 
be  on  his  guard  against  a  jealous  temper.  Avoiding  care- 
fully dogmatism  in  favour  of  criticism,  he  must  with  at 
least  equal  care  avoid  dogmatism  against  it,  in  the  form  of 
hasty  conclusions  that  if  the  critics  are  right  it  is  all  over 
''  "th  revelation,  or  with  the  claim  of  the  Scriptures  to  be  in 

*  Einhitung,  p.  402. 

'  So  Maurice  Vernes  in  Let  resuUats  d«  UExegese  Bibltque,  1890.  With 
him  agree  Ernest  Ha  vet  and  d'Eiffctal.  Vide  Ha  vet's  La  Modemiti  des 
Prophetes.  In  a  review  of  this  work,  reprinted  in  Le»  Prophetes  d' Israel, 
pp.  121-151,  Darmesteter  has  given  a  convincing  refutation  of  Havet's 
theory  that  the  prophetic  literature  originated  at  the  end  of  the  second 
"Antiiry  B.C.,  in  connection  with  the  struggle  of  the  Jews  against  the  Greek 
cings  of  Syria.  On  this  theory  Assyria  really  means  the  Syria  of  the  Seleu- 
cidsB,  and  Tiglath  Pilescr,  Sargon,  and  Sennacherib  represeiit  Antiochiu 
Epiphanea,  Demetrius  Nicator,  rtc 


THE  SOURCES.  173 

any  sense  a  divine  book,  or  of  Israel  to  be  an  elect  people, 
and  that  therefore  the  believer  must  renounce  the  critics 
and  all  their  works.  In  the  interest  of  faith  it  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  make  it  as  independent  as  possible  of  all  dog- 
matism in  reference  to  matters  coming  within  the  sphere 
of  scientific  inquiry.  To  this  sphere  the  questions  dealt 
with  by  criticism  certainly  belong.  If  the  date  of  a  book, 
say  of  the  second  half  of  Isaiah,  or  of  Daniel,  can  be  ascer- 
tained by  careful  observation  of  its  own  characteristics,  why 
should  it  not  be  ?  How  inept  to  interdict  such  an  inquiry 
in  the  supposed  interest  of  faith,  how  foolish  to  proclaim 
on  the  housetop  that  if  the  inquiry  lead  to  a  certain  result 
the  faith  must  be  destroyed ! 

The  proper  apologetic  attitude  towards  criticism  ia 
essentially  the  same  as  that  towards  the  evolutionary 
theory  of  the  origin  of  the  universe.  Modem  criticism 
yields  what  may  be  called  an  evolutionary  theory  of  the 
origin  of  Old  Testament  literature  and  religion ;  and  the 
two  evolutions  should  be  faced  with  the  same  spirit  of 
fearless  trust.  The  business  of  the  apologist  is,  in  both 
cases  alike,  to  recognise  the  legitimacy  of  the  inquiry,  while 
not  dogmatising  as  to  the  truth  of  its  results,  to  acquire 
such  an  acquaintance  with  the  main  lines  of  thought  as 
shall  enable  him  to  grasp  their  drift,  and  to  show  if  he  can 
that  the  old  faith  can  live  with  the  new  science  or  hypo- 
thesis. With  reference  to  the  evolution  in  the  sphere  of 
nature,  the  task  has  been  achieved  to  the  satisfaction  of  a 
large  section  of  the  believing  world.  With  reference  to 
the  evolution  in  the  sphere  of  religion,  apologetic  endeavours 
have  hitherto  been  less  abundant  and  less  successful  in 
commanding  general  assent. 

Proceeding  in  the  spirit  just  explained,  we  must  allow 
our  method  to  be  controlled  by  criticism,  so  far  as  to  make 
our  starting-point  what  critics  of  greatest  weight  and 
authority  regard  as  certain.  On  this  principle  we  must 
begin  our  study  of  the  religion  of  Israel  with  the  prophets. 
In  their  writings  we  escape  from  the  mists  of  critical  doubt 


174  APOLOGETICS. 

into  the  daylight  of  acknowledged  history.  The  oracles  of 
Hosea,  Amos,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  etc.,  are  for  the  Old  Testa- 
ment what  the  four  Epistles  of  Paul  to  the  Galatian, 
Corinthian,  and  Eoman  Churches  are  for  the  New  Testa- 
ment,— a  firm  foundation  on  which  the  student  of  Israel's 
religious  history  may  safely  plant  his  foot.  In  both  cases 
the  authenticity  of  the  relative  writings  has  been  called  in 
question  by  a  few  extremists,  but  in  the  judgment  of  the 
vast  majority  of  critics  we  may  confidently  gather  from  the 
prophetic  writings  the  religious  view  of  the  universe  cherished 
by  the  best  minds  in  Israel  from  the  eighth  to  the  sixth 
century  B.C.,  as  we  may  gather  from  the  four  above-named 
Epistles  of  Paul  the  conception  of  Christianity  entertained 
by  the  man  who  was  second  only  to  the  great  Master. 

Our  plan,  then,  is  as  follows : — 

First,  we  shall  endeavour  to  form  a  preliminary  general 
idea  of  the  religion  of  the  prophets,  noting  how  they 
thought  concerning  God,  man,  the  world,  and  kindred 
topics.  Xext,  we  shall  try  to  learn  from  their  writings 
what  idea  the  prophets  cherished  concerning  the  nation  to 
which  they  belonged.  Happily  there  are  scattered  hints 
available  for  this  purpose,  not  so  copious  as  one  might 
wish,  yet  sufficient ;  only  occasional,  yet  on  that  account 
all  the  more  reliable.  From  these  we  gather  that  the 
people  of  Israel  had  a  remarkable  history  reaching  far  back 
into  the  ancient  time ;  that  their  fathers  had  sojourned  in 
Egypt,  and  had  been  brought  out  of  that  land  by  a  remark- 
able man  and  a  remarkable  Providence,  which  seemed  to 
point  them  out  as  an  elect  people  with  a  peculiar  destiny. 
The  prophetic  view  of  Israel's  vocation  and  history  will 
form  the  subject  of  a  chapter,  which  will  naturally  be 
Ibllowed  by  one  on  the  hero  of  the  Exodus,  through  whom 
a  horde  of  slaves  was  organised  into  a  nation — that  is  to 
say,  on  Moses  and  Mosaism,  From  that  topic  we  shall 
revert  to  Proplietism,  now  to  be  regarded  as  a  stage  in  the 
onward  progress  of  revelation ;  in  which  connection  we  shall 
have  to  consider  some  of  the  more  special  oharacteristict 


THE   SOUKCES.  176 

of  Hebrew  prophecj,  and,  above  all,  these  two — its  stern 
assertion  of  the  moral  order  of  the  world,  and  its  bright 
inspiring  proclamation  of  the  Messianic  hope.  Thence  we 
shall  proceed  to  the  study  of  Judaism,  or  the  religion  of 
Israel  in  the  period  subsequent  to  the  exile,  when  we  shall 
have  to  consider  the  connection  of  this  phase  of  Israel's 
religion  with  the  earlier  stages,  what  elements  of  good 
were  in  it,  and  how  far  it  contained  the  seeds  of  that 
degenerate  type  of  piety  with  which  the  Gospels  make  us 
familiar  under  the  title  of  "  the  righteousness  of  the  scribes 
and  Pharisees."  With  that  counterfeit  righteousness 
Judaism,  as  it  appeared  within  the  period  covered  by 
the  Hebrew  canonical  literature,  cannot  certainly  be 
identified-  With  whatever  defects,  it  was,  on  the  whole, 
A  boon  to  Israel,  and  the  chief  agents  connected  with  it 
were  men  of  pure  intention,  acting  under  divine  guidance 
and  inspiration.  To  understand  Pharisaism,  that  dark 
religious  background  which  throws  into  such  bright  relief 
the  fair  image  of  Jesus,  we  must  pass  from  the  twilight  of 
Judaism  into  the  night  of  legalism,  which  will  form  the 
subject  of  a  separate  chapter.  Having  thus  considered  in 
succession  the  various  stages  of  Israel's  history  from  Moses 
to  the  Christian  era,  we  shall,  in  two  concluding  chapters, 
have  to  consider  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  as  a  literature  of 
revelation,  treating  of  their  origin  and  value,  and  also  of 
their  defects  arising  out  of  their  being  the  literature  of  the 
preparatory  stage  of  revelation. 

One  other  remark  is  needful  to  complete  the  explanation 
of  the  method  of  procedure.  The  conception  of  Israel  as 
an  elect  people,  having  a  special  religious  vocation  and 
enjoying  peculiar  privileges,  naturally  leads  to  comparison 
of  her  religious  ideas  and  practices  with  those  of  other 
peoples.  Such  comparisons  accordingly  will  be  made,  as 
opportunity  offers,  with  the  aim  of  establishing  the  reality 
of  Israel's  election  and  the  superior  value  of  her  religion. 
Happily,  as  will  appear,  this  aim  can  be  attained  without 
nnjuBt  or  nngenerous  disparagement  of  ethnic  religion. 


176  APOLOGSTIOS. 

CHAPTER  IL 

THB  KELIGION  OF  THE  PROPHETS. 

Literature. — Vatke,  Die  Religion  des  Alien  TestamenU; 
1835 ;  Duhm,  Die  Theologie  der  Propheten ;  Kuenen,  TTu 
Prophets  and  Prcphecy  in  Israel  (translated  from  the  Dutch) ; 
Professor  Robertson  Smith,  The  Projyhets  of  Israel ;  Green 
(W.  H.,  of  Princeton  Theol.  Sem.),  Moses  and  the  Prophets 
(a  review  of  Robertson  Smith's  Old  Testament  in  the  Jeioiah 
Church  and  The  Prophets  of  Israel,  and  of  Kuenen's  Prophets 
and  Prophecy  in  Israel) ;  Schultz,  AltestamentlicJie  Theologie ; 
Riehm,  Altestamentliche  Theologie;  Duff,  Old  Testament 
Theology,  or  The  History  of  Hebrew  Religion  from  the  Year 
800  B.C.,  1891 ;  Professor  Robertson,  The  Early  Religion  of 
Israel  (Baird  Lectures  for  1889). 

The  following  sketch  is  based  upon  the  utterances  of  the 
series  of  prophets  ranging  from  Amos  to  Jeremiah,  and 
covering  a  period  of  about  two  centuries. 

In  the  writings  of  these  prophets  Jehovah  is,  with  ever 
growing  clearness  and  emphasis,  represented  as  the  one 
supreme  true  God.  The  great  religious  teachers  of  Israel 
in  the  eighth  and  seventh  centuries  were,  speaking  broadly, 
monotheists.  By  this  statement  is  not  meant  that  these 
prophets  taught  in  modern  fashion  an  abstract  or  meta- 
physical doctrine  of  monotheism.  This  was  not  the  way 
of  the  Hebrew  prophets,  or  of  the  race  to  which  they 
belonged,  at  any  time.  Their  monotheism  was  practical 
and  religious,  not  theoretical  and  philosophical.  They 
affirmed,  not  that  their  God  Jehovah  was  the  only  possible 
deity,  but  that  He  was  the  Highest,  the  Mightiest,  and  the 
Best,  and  that  whatever  other  gods  existed  were  unworthy 
of  regard.  Their  attitude  towards  the  gods  of  the  surround- 
ing peoples  was  not  one  of  philosophic  scepticism,  but 
rather  of  religious  contempt.  This  contempt,  however,  is 
expressed  in  terms  so  incisive  that  it  amounts  to  dogmatic 


THE   RELIGION   OF   THE   PROPHETS.  177 

denial  The  heathen  deities  are  called  "  lies,"  *  "  vanities,"  * 
"the  work  of  men's  hands.""  This  dialect  of  scorn  is 
common  to  all  the  prophets,  and  grows  in  intensity  in 
each  succeeding  prophet.  It  reaches  its  culmination  in 
Jeremiah,  in  whose  prophecies  religious  monotheism  may 
be  said  to  develop  into  theoretical  monotheism,  and  con- 
tempt to  issue  in  downright  denial  He  calls  heathen 
gods  "  no  gods,"  *  charges  them  with  utter  impotence  to  do 
either  good  or  evil,*  and  ridicules  the  idea  of  trusting  in 
them.'  On  the  other  hand,  he  calls  Jehovah  the  King  of 
nations,  and  declares  Him  to  be  the  true  (Jod,  the  living 
Gtod,  and  the  everlasting  King.^ 

This  prophetic  doctrine  of  God  may  be  regarded  as  the 
implicit  or  instinctive  faith  of  the  best  in  Israel  from  the 
days  of  Moses  downwards.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that,  from  the  eighth  century  onwards,  it  was  proclaimed 
by  the  prophets  with  an  emphasis  which  made  it  virtually 
a  new  faith.  A  prophet  is  never  a  repeater  of  common- 
places ;  when  we  find  him  afl&rming  any  truth  with  intensity 
and  iteration,  we  may  be  sure  it  is  a  new  truth,  at  least  in 
respect  of  the  amount  of  conviction  with  which  it  is  uttered, 
and  the  connections  of  thought  in  which  it  is  introduced. 
The  historical  situation  in  which  the  prophets  of  the  eighth 
and  seventh  centuries  found  themselves  explains  the  strength 
with  which  they  asserted  the  supremacy  of  Jehovah.  At 
that  period  the  fate  of  Israel  began  to  be  involved  in  the 
movements  of  the  great  Eastern  monarchies.  First  the 
Assyrian  empire,  then  the  Chaldean,  menaced  the  inde- 
pendence and  even  the  existence  of  the  petty  kingdom 
lying  between  the  Jordan  and  the  Mediterranean.  When 
these  great  powers  of  the  East  rose  above  the  horizon, 
monotheism  became  a  necessity  for  the  chosen  peopla     It 

>  AmoaiL  4. 

'  Isa.  IL   18,  iO }  z.  !• ;  six.  a.    In  Habnw,  D^  i  trualBted  is 

▲nthorised  Yerdon  "Idola." 

*  Hoa.  ziT.  8  ;  Mkftk  t.  18.  •  Jtt.  ▼.  f. 

•  Jer.  X.  ft.  •  Jer.  z.  t-flw  '  J«.  &  f,  lH 

M 


178  APOLOGlSnCS. 

was  the  only  way  of  escape  from  submission  to  the  vic- 
torious gods  of  the  conqueror.  Thus  the  political  calamities 
of  Israel  became  an  important  factor  in  her  religious  educa- 
tion. She  learned  therefrom  to  rise  above  the  idea  of  a 
merely  national  God,  whose  relative  might,  as  compared 
with  that  of  other  national  deities,  was  decided  by  the 
issue  of  battle,  to  the  idea  of  a  God  over  all,  exercising  a 
providence  over  all  the  nations,  and  using  them  alternately 
as  the  instruments  of  His  righteous  government. 

The  prophets  learnt  first,  and  promptly,  the  momentous 
lesson.  Amos,  the  earliest  of  the  prophets  whose  writings 
have  been  preserved,  very  distinctly  declares  Jehovah  to 
be  the  God  of  all  the  nations,  when  he  represents  Him  as 
claiming  to  have  brought  the  Philistines  from  Caphtor,  and 
the  Syrians  from  Kir,  even  as  He  had  brought  up  Israel 
out  of  the  land  of  Egypt.*  Micah,  in  the  same  spirit,  calls 
Jehovah  "  the  Lord  of  the  whole  earth." '  Jeremiah,  as 
we  have  seen,  addresses  Jehovah  as  the  "  King  of  nations," 
and  claims  for  Him,  as  such,  universal  reverence.  "  Who 
would  not  fear  Thee,  O  King  of  the  nations  ?  for  to  Thee 
doth  it  appertain.  .  .  .  Jehovah  is  the  true  God,  He  is 
the  living  God,  and  an  everlasting  king :  at  His  wrath  the 
earth  shall  tremble,  and  the  nations  shall  not  be  able  to 
abide  His  indignation."' 

Along  with  this  doctrine  of  Jehovah's  supremacy  over 
the  nations  naturally  goes  the  conception  of  Him  as 
creati7ig  and  sustaining  the  world.  Accordingly  we  find 
these  functions  very  expressly  ascribed  to  the  God  of  Israel 
in  the  prophetic  writings.  Thus  Amos  describes  Jehovah 
as  Him  "  that  formeth  the  mountains,  and  createth  the  wind, 
and  declareth  unto  man  what  is  his  thought,  that  maketh 
the  morning  darkness,  and  treadeth  upon  the  high  places 
of  the  earth ; "  *  and,  again,  as  one  "  that  maketh  the  seven 
stars  and  Orion,  and  turneth  the  shadow  of  death  into  the 
morning,  and  maketh  the  day  dark  with  night :  that  calleth 
for  the  waters  of  the  sea,  and  poureth  them  out  upon  the 
>  Abuw  iz.  7.         '  Micab  Iv.  It.  •  Jer.  z.  10.  *  Amot  iv.  18. 


THE  &BLIOION   OF  THE   PBOPHETS.  179 

face  of  the  earth."'  In  these  animated  passages  God 
appears  as  the  Maker  of  all  things  in  heaven  and  on  earth, 
and  as  the  sustainer  of  the  course  of  nature ;  the  ultimate 
cause  of  all  that  happens,  of  the  succession  of  day  and 
night,  of  the  ebbing  and  flowing  of  the  tides,  of  the  tempest 
and  the  following  calm.  As  was  to  be  expected,  the 
doctrine  of  God's  creative  power  and  universal  providence 
appears  full-blown  in  the  pages  of  Jeremiah.  "  He  hath 
made  the  earth  by  His  power,  He  hath  established  the 
world  by  His  wisdom,  and  hath  stretched  out  the  heavens 
by  His  discretion.  When  He  uttereth  His  voice,  there  is 
a  multitude  of  waters  in  the  heavens,  and  He  causeth  the 
vapours  to  ascend  from  the  ends  of  the  earth ;  He  maketh 
lightnings  with  rain,  and  bringeth  forth  the  wind  out  of 
His  treasures."*  These  prophetic  representations,  it  will 
be  observed,  are  in  full  accord  with  the  Jehovistic  records 
of  the  beginnings  of  things,  wherein  the  heavens  and  the 
earth  are  spoken  of  as  owing  their  origin  to  Jehovah 
Elohim.* 

The  Hebrew  prophets,  however,  it  must  not  be  forgotten, 
were  not  alone  in  ascribing  to  their  God  the  attribute 
of  creator.  Other  peoples,  such  as  the  Babylonians  and 
Phoenicians,  bestowed  on  their  national  divinities  the  same 
title.  From  this  it  might  plausibly  be  inferred  that  the 
prophetic  doctrine  of  creation  is  quite  compatible  with  a 
purely  national  conception  of  the  creator.  If  every  nation 
thought  of  its  god  as  a  creator,  why  should  we  attach  any 
importance  to  the  fact  that  the  prophets  claimed  this 
distinction  for  the  God  of  Israel  ?  The  answer  to  this  is, 
that  the  prophets  did  not  use  the  title  creator  as  a  mere 

^  Amofl  T.  8.  These  two  texts  are  regarded  by  "Wellhausen  and  Stade  as 
later  interpolations,  on  the  ground  that  they  disturb  the  connection.  Pro- 
fessor Robertson  remarks:  "Any  one  with  the  least  sympathy  with  the 
writers  will  recognise  in  them  (the  passages  suspected)  the  outpouring  of 
hearts  that  were  full  of  the  noblest  conceptions  of  the  God  whom  they 
celebrate,  and  will  perceive  that  they  come  in  most  fitly  to  emphasise  the 
eon  text." — The  Early  Religion  of  Isrctel,  p.  820, 

*  Jer.  z.  12,  18.  >  Oen.  ii.  i. 


180  APOLOGETICS. 

expletive,  by  way  of  lip-homage,  in  accordance  with  Semitic 
fashion.  They  believed  that  only  one  God  could  create, 
as  there  was  only  one  world  to  create ;  and  they  argued, 
not  from  divinity  to  creative  power,  but  from  creative  power 
to  true  divinity.  They  made  power  to  create  the  test  of 
divinity.  Thus  Jeremiah  asks :  "  Are  there  any  among 
the  vanities  of  the  heathen  that  can  cause  rain  ?  or  can 
the  heavens  give  showers  ?  Art  not  Thou  He,  O 
Jehovah  our  God  ?  therefore  we  will  wait  upon  Thee ;  for 
Thou  hast  made  all  these  things."* 

That  the  Jehovah  of  Hebrew  prophecy  is  not  merely  the 
national  God  of  Israel,  but  the  one  true  God  over  all.. 
appears  very  conspicuously  from  the  fact  that  He  is  con- 
stantly represented  as  exercising  a  universal  and  impartial 
justice.  Very  instructive  in  this  connection  are  the  two 
opening  chapters  of  Amos,  in  which  Jehovah  is  exhibited 
as  threatening  with  condign  punishment  for  their  sins, 
through  the  instrumentality  of  the  Assyrian  invader  not 
named  but  ominously  referred  to  as  "  it,"  the  various 
nations  in  and  around  Palestine  lying  on  the  line  of  the 
conqueror's  march.  Three  things  in  this  judgment  pro- 
gramme are  noteworthy,  all  suggesting  the  same  inference : 
Jehovah,  not  the  national  God  of  Israel,  partial  to  His 
people,  but  the  just  Ruler  over  all.  The  offences  to  be 
punished  are  moral;  they  are  not  in  all  cases  offences 
against  Israel ;  and  Israel  herself  is  not  to  be  exempted 
from  the  invading  scourge.  Damascus,  Gaza,  Tyre,  Edom, 
Amnion,  and  Moab  are  to  be  subjected  to  the  judicial  fire, 
not  because  they  are  heathen  and  do  not  worship  Israel's 
God,  but  because  they  have  been  guilty  of  barbarities 
which  outrage  the  laws  of  universal  morality.  Damascus 
has  threshed  Gilead  with  threshing  instruments  of  iron, 
and  Ammon  has  done  to  the  devoted  city  something  worse ; 
Gaza  and  Tyre  have  been  the  seats  of  an  inhuman  traffic 
in  slaves ;  Edom  has  pursued  his  brother  in  a  too  relentless 
blood-feud,  and  "  kept  his  wrath  for  ever,"  In  these  cases 
»  J«r.  xiT.  28. 


THS   BELIOION   OF  THE   PROPHETS.  181 

Israel  was  the  sufferer,  and  it  is  mentioned  as  an  aggrava- 
tion  of  the  offence  in  the  case  of  Tyre,  that  in  making 
slaves  of  Israelites  she  had  been  unmindful  of  the  old 
alliance  between  herself  and  Israel.  But  as  if  to  show 
that  it  is  not  because  they  affect  Israel,  but  because  they 
are  grave  moral  offences,  that  these  crimes  of  nations  are 
singled  out  for  punishment,  one  other  offence,  that  of  Moab, 
is  mentioned,  in  which  Jehovah's  people  is  not  concerned. 
The  offence  of  Moab  is  that  she  has  burned  the  bones  of 
the  king  of  Edom  into  lime — a  wanton  outrage  on  the 
common  feeling  of  respect  for  the  dead. 

Still,  five  out  of  six  of  the  sins  specified  are  offences 
against  Israel,  and  the  fact  may  seem  to  justify  a  suspicion 
of  partiality.  But  the  suspicion  vanishes  when  it  is 
observed  that  Israel  herself  comes  in  for  a  share  of  the 
impending  chastisement  Far  from  being  exempted,  she  is 
to  be  in  a  special  degree  the  subject  of  Jehovah's  judicial 
severity,  just  because  she  is  His  peculiar  people.  To  the 
race  which  He  has  brought  up  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt 
Jehovah  by  the  mouth  of  His  prophet  says :  "  You  only 
have  I  known  of  all  the  families  of  the  earth :  therefore  I 
will  visit  upon  you  all  your  iniquities."  ^  This  is  not  the 
kind  of  utterance  we  expect  from  a  merely  national  God, 
whom  it  would  rather  suit  to  say :  You  only  have  I  known, 
therefore  I  will  defend  you,  right  or  wrong,  against  all 
comers,  and  with  special  seal  against  this  boastful  Assyrian 
who  approaches  my  land.  This  is  the  language  of  One 
who  has  to  do  with  all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  while 
standing  in  special  relations  to  a  particular  people,  and  who 
has  a  fixed  moral  character  which  no  special  relations  can 
be  allowed  to  compromise  in  the  way  either  of  injustice  to 
the  outside  nations  or  of  favouritism  to  the  chosen  peopla 
Accordingly  the  transgressions  of  that  people  are  not  slurred 
over,  but  enumerated  with  a  fulness  of  detail  that  in  more 
than  any  other  instance  justifies  the  formula,  "  for  three 
transgressions  and  for  four."  "  Because  they  sold  the 
*  Amos  iii.  2. 


182  APOLOGETICS. 

righteous  for  silver,  and  the  needy  for  a  pair  of  shoes ;  that 
pant  after  the  dust  of  the  earth  on  the  head  of  the  poor, 
and  turn  aside  the  way  of  the  meek :  and  a  man  and  his 
father  will  go  in  unto  the  same  maid,  to  profane  my  holy 
name:  and  they  lay  themselves  down  beside  every  altar 
upon  clothes  taken  in  pledge,  and  in  the  house  of  theii 
god  they  drink  the  wine  of  such  as  have  been  fined."  * 
Such  is  the  black  damning  list  of  Israel's  sins,  wherein  two 
stand  out  above  all  others — shameless  covetousness  and 
shameless  sensuality.  Such  iniquities  the  God  in  whom 
the  herdman  of  Tekoa  believes  cannot  endure.  He  did 
not  choose  Israel  in  order  to  become  the  patron  of  in- 
humanity and  vileness ;  perish  the  chosen  race  rather  than 
that  such  enormities  should  go  unpunished.  This  is  the 
creed  not  only  of  monotheism,  but  of  ethical  monotheism. 
It  is  a  high,  pure  faith  in  a  moral  order  of  the  world  that 
without  respect  of  persons  deals  with  men  and  nations 
according  to  their  works. 

In  view  of  such  an  august  moral  order  it  may  seem 
difficult  to  vindicate  the  idea  of  election,  or  special  relations, 
in  any  sense  or  to  any  extent.  This  is  a  question  we  shall 
have  to  consider  hereafter.  Meantime  we  remark  that  the 
very  idea  of  election,  or  of  a  special  relation  sustained  by 
God  to  a  particular  people,  constituted  by  an  act  of  choice, 
is  incompatible  with  the  notion  of  Jehovah  being  merely 
the  national  God  of  Israel  A  national  god  is  not  the  god 
of  his  people  by  choice,  but  by  natural  affinity  and  necessity. 
Bel  could  no  more  help  being  the  god  of  Babylon,  than  a 
Babylonian  could  help  being  bom  in  a  country  where  Bel 
was  worshipped  as  the  national  deity.  On  the  other  hand, 
a  God  who  becomes  related  to  a  particular  people  by  choice 
or  covenant  is  a  God  who,  before  the  choice,  stood  in  the 
same  relations  to  all,  and  might  have  made  no  choice  or  a 
different  one.  He  is  further  a  God  who,  after  making  a 
choice,  does  not  feel  bound  by  it  to  partiality  in  favour  of 
the  elected  people,  or  to  permanence  in  Hia  relations 
'AmosiL  e-8. 


THE   RELIGION    OF   THE   PROPHETS.  183 

thereto.  He  chooses  from  a  purpose  in  harmony  with  His 
absolute  character,  and  He  will  be  guided  by  that  purpose 
in  all  His  relations  to  the  chosen.  Thus  the  electing  God 
of  Hebrew  prophecy  is  in  all  respects  the  very  antithesis 
of  the  national  gods  of  heathen  Semitic  peoples. 

The  title,  the  Holy  One  of  Israel,  frequently  applied  to 
Jehovah  by  the  prophets,  especially  by  Isaiah,  seems  to 
savour  of  religious  nationalism.  When,  however,  the  import 
of  the  title  is  carefully  considered,  it  is  seen  to  be  in  entire 
accord  with  the  monotheistic  conception  of  deity  ascribed 
to  the  prophets  on  the  grounds  already  mentioned.  No 
stress,  indeed,  is  to  be  laid  on  the  mere  epithet  "  holy." 
All  the  gods  of  all  peoples  are  holy;  even  the  infamous 
gods  of  the  pagan  Semites,  the  patrons  of  prostitutioa 
Even  the  worshippers  of  these  foul  divinities  who  gave 
themselves  up  to  the  vile  practices  prescribed  in  the  name 
of  religion,  were  called  holy  women  and  holy  men.  The 
term  thus  applied  simply  means  separated  from  common  to 
religious  use,  and  is  perfectly  compatible  with  any  degree 
of  immorality.  The  holiness  of  Jehovah  as  conceived  by  the 
prophets  is  something  very  different,  as  we  may  learn  from 
examining  the  connection  in  which  the  title,  "  The  Holy 
One  of  Israel,"  first  occurs  in  Isaiah's  prophecies.  It  is 
introduced  in  connection  with  a  severe  condemnation  of 
the  sin  of  Israel :  "  Ah  sinful  nation,  a  people  laden  with 
iniquity,  a  seed  of  evildoers,  children  that  deal  corruptly : 
they  have  forsaken  Jehovah,  they  have  despised  the  Holy 
One  of  Israel,  they  are  estranged  and  gone  backward."* 
And  note  what  the  sins  are  that  have  insulted  the  divine 
holiness.  They  are  not  ritual  offences,  ignorant  or  wilful 
breaches  of  ceremonial  rules,  neglect  of  religious  services. 
On  the  contrary,  the  sinners  complained  of  are  scrupulously 
careful  in  these  respects ;  they  are  religious  ad  nauseam. 
What  the  Holy  One  finds  fault  with  in  Israel  is  her  moral 
oflfences :  sins  of  injustice  and  inhumanity.  **  Thy  princes 
are  rebellious,  and  companions  of  thieves ;  every  one  loveth 

U8a.L4. 


184  APOLOGETICS. 

gifts,  and  followeth  after  rewards;  they  judge  not  th« 
fatherless,  neither  doth  the  canse  of  the  widow  come  unto 
them,"*  This  charge  throws  light  on  the  nature  of 
Jehovah's  hoKness.  It  means  above  all  aloofness  from 
such  misconduct  as  Israel  is  guilty  of — disapprobation  of 
moral  eviL  The  Holy  One  of  Israel  is  exalted  in  all 
senses.  He  is,  as  Hosea  and  Micah  call  Him,  God  on  high, 
raised  far  above  the  world  of  created  and  finite  being ;  He 
is  so  exalted  in  virtue  of  His  being  God,  so  that  holiness 
and  deity  are  in  a  sense  synonymous.  But  the  moral 
element  in  the  divine  holiness  is  what  the  prophets  chiefly 
emphasise.  And  just  on  that  account  the  Holy  One  of 
Israel  does  not  in  their  view  belong  to  Israel  His  holiness 
imposes  on  Israel  obligations  to  be  holy,  not  ritually  only 
but  really,  and  exposes  her  to  the  risk  of  forfeiting  His 
favour  in  case  she  fail  to  satisfy  His  just  demands.  In 
other  words,  the  Holy  One  of  Israel  is  the  Holy  One  of 
the  universe.  He  is  high  and  lifted  up,  and  "  the  whole 
earth  is  full  of  His  glory."  • 

It  does  not  foUow  from  this  that  the  chosen  people,  or 
the  temple  which  Isaiah  in  vision  saw  filled  with  the  train 
of  the  Holy  One,  was  nothing  to  Jehovah,  or  that  the  pro- 
phets who  had  risen  above  religious  nationalism  in  their 
conception  of  deity  must  therefore  lightly  reconcile  them- 
selves to  the  abandonment  of  either.  For  them  as  for 
Providence,  it  is  true,  the  religious  interest  was  supreme, 
and  they  understood  more  or  less  clearly  that  that  interest 
might  be  promoted  even  by  the  misfortunes  of  Israel 
Nevertheless,  it  might  well  appear  to  them  that  the  ex- 
istence of  Israel  in  whole  or  in  part,  and  of  the  holy  place, 
was  necessary  to  the  preservation  of  the  true  religion.  So 
long  as  they  believed  this  they  would  maintain  the  inde- 
structibility of  the  divine  state  and  the  inviolability  of 
Jehovah's  sanctuary ;  for  with  all  the  prophets  it  was 
an  axiom  that  God's  end  in  chooamg  Israel  could  not  fail, 
His  gracious  purpose  must  be  fulfilled.     This  accordingly 

>Is«.  i.  88.  'isa.  tL  8. 


THB  REUOION   OF   THE   PB0PHET8.  186 

is  the  position  taken  up  by  the  prophet  Isaiah.  That 
Jerusalem  or  Zion,  Jehovah's  seat,  is  inviolable,  is  for  him 
a  fixed  principle,  which  he  resolutely  maintains  in  the 
most  desperate  circumstances.  Even  when  the  Eastern 
conqueror  is  at  the  gate  with  a  mighty  army,  and  destruc- 
tion seenjs  inevitable,  he  hurls  defiance  at  the  invader  in 
such  terms  as  these  :  "  The  virgin,  the  daughter  of  Zion, 
hath  despised  thee,  and  laughed  thee  to  scorn ;  the  daughter 
of  Jerusalem  hath  shaken  her  head  at  thee.  Whom  hast 
thou  reproached  and  blasphemed  ?  and  against  whom  hast 
thou  exalted  thy  voice,  and  lifted  up  thine  eyes  on  high  ? 
even  against  the  Holy  One  of  Israel ; "  concluding  with 
the  firm  declaration  that  Sennacherib's  army  should  not 
enter  Jerusalem :  "  For  I  will  defend  this  city  to  save  it, 
for  mine  own  sake,  and  my  servant  David's  sake."  ^  Isaiah 
was  prepared  for  much  in  the  way  of  judgment  on  Jehovah's 
people  for  her  sins.  He  predicted  that  in  threescore  and 
five  years  Ephraim  should  be  broken  in  pieces,  and  cease 
to  be  a  people.*  He  expected  that  even  Judah  would 
suffer  severely,  so  as  to  resemble  a  tree  cut  down  to  the 
stump.  But  he  believed  that  in  her  case  a  stock  would 
survive  all  calamities,  a  holy  seed,  a  faithful  remnant.'  It 
was  this  faith  that  supported  him  through  the  crisis  of 
the  Assyrian  invasion,  and  which  was  so  marvellously 
justified  by  the  sudden  destruction  of  Sennacherib's  host. 
It  was  not  faith  in  a  merely  national  god,  bound  in 
honour  and  as  a  matter  of  course  to  defend  his  people.  It 
was  at  bottom  faith  in  the  indestructibility  of  the  true 
religion,  with  which  at  the  moment  the  continuance  of  the 
state  of  Judah  seemed  inseparably  bound  up. 

In  Isaiah's  time  the  interest  of  the  true  religion  and 
the  maintenance  of  the  Jewish  state  were  indeed  practically 
one.  And,  owing  to  the  limitations  of  prophetic  vision,  it 
might  well  be  that  he  deemed  the  two  things  permanently 
inseparable.  The  fact,  however,  was  not  so,  and  within  a 
century  this  had  become  clear  to  recipients  of  prophetic 
'  In.  xuvlL  22,  28,  85.  *  Isa.  vii.  8.  '  laa.  vi  1& 


186  APOLOGETICS. 

inspiration.  Jeremiah,  holding  firmly  Isaiah's  principle, 
the  common  faith  of  all  Hebrew  prophets,  that  the  true 
religion  must  prosper  and  Jehovah's  purpose  be  fulfilled, 
draws  from  it  an  opposite  inference ;  not  that  Judah  must 
be  saved,  and  Zion  remain  inviolable,  but  that  Judah  must 
go  into  captivity,  and  Jerusalem  and  the  temple  be  de- 
stroyed. Jeremiah  believed  negatively  that  these  calamities 
might  happen  without  detriment  to  the  religious  interest, 
and  positively  that  by  their  occurrence  that  interest  would 
be  advanced.  What  had  happened  in  the  interval  between 
the  two  prophets  to  bring  about  this  marked  change  of 
view  ?  Well,  for  one  thing,  Isaiah's  long  ministry  had 
borne  its  natural  fruit.  He  had  raised  up  a  band  of  dis- 
ciples, "  a  community  of  true  faith  able  to  hold  together 
even  in  times  of  persecution,  and  conscious  that  its  re- 
ligion rested  on  a  different  basis  from  that  of  the  idolatrous 
masses."  ^  This  was  the  birth  of  a  Church  as  distinct  from 
a  nation :  a  community  of  men  united  not  by  mere 
nationality,  though  belonging  to  the  same  people,  but  by 
fellowship  in  religious  faith.*  If  we  accept  the  view  that 
the  concentration  of  worship  at  the  one  sanctuary  insisted 
on  in  Deuteronomy  had  taken  place  shortly  before  Jeremiah 
began  to  prophesy,  this  event  also  would  not  be  without 
influence  in  making  religion  independent  of  political  con- 
ditions. It  involved  that  devout  souls  had  to  learn  to  be 
religious  without  daily  access  to  sanctuaries  such  as  they 
enjoyed  when  every  town  and  district  had  its  high  place. 
Dispensing  with  sacrifices  and  sacred  festivals,  except  at 
stated  intervals  at  the  central  sanctuary,  was  an  education 
for  dispensing  with  them  altogether  during  the  exile,  with- 
out degenerating  into  heathenism.  In  some  such  way  it 
came  to  pass  that  Jeremiah  could  contemplate  the  destruc- 
tion of  state  and  temple  without  fear.  He  felt  sure  that 
the  divine  interest  would  survive  these  disastera.     Nay,  as 

*  W.  Robertson  Smith,  The  Prophets  qflaradf  p.  262. 

*  The  Prophets  of  Israel,  p.  275.     Professor  Smith's  whol*  diaonssioB  al 
Urn  contrast  between  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  is  very  instraeti'V*. 


THE   RELIGION   OF   THE   PROPHETS.  187 

has  been  said,  he  ventured  to  hope  that  it  would  be  pro- 
moted thereby,  that  through  exile  God's  people  would  be 
brought  nearer  to  the  happy  times  of  the  New  Covenant, 
when  all,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest,  should  know 
Jehovah.  Hence  the  sublime  calmness  with  which  he 
intimates  to  those  whose  constant  cry  was,  "  The  temple 
of  Jehovah,  the  temple  of  Jehovah,  the  temple  of  Jehovah," 
that  the  temple  in  which  they  trusted  might  share  the 
fate  of  the  holy  place  at  Shiloh.  "  Go  ye  now  unto 
my  place  which  was  in  Shiloh,  where  I  set  my  name  at 
the  first,  and  see  what  I  did  to  it  for  the  wickedness  of  my 
people  Israel"  * 

We  have  thus  satisfied  ourselves  from  every  point  of 
view  that  the  religion  of  the  prophets  did  not  consist  in 
the  worship  of  a  merely  national  God  called  Jehovah.  It 
may  be  strictly  described  as  an  ethical  monotheism.  Of 
such  a  faith,  individualism  and  universalism  are  obvious 
consequences,  and  we  naturally  inquire  whether  any  traces 
of  these  developments  can  be  discovered  in  the  prophetic 
writings.  Now,  as  to  the  former,  which  points  to  a  per- 
sonal relation  of  God  to  the  individual  spirit,  it  has  to  be 
remembered  that  in  the  ancient  Hebrew  way  of  thinking, 
the  nation  not  the  individual  is  the  unit.  Jehovah  is  the 
God  of  Israel  as  a  whole.  He  is  the  Maker  of  Israel,  who 
has  given  her  her  place  in  history.  His  covenant  is  with 
Israel  His  promises  and  threatenings.  His  mercies  and 
judgments,  concern  immediately  the  people  at  large,  and 
only  indirectly  the  individuals  who  belong  to  it.  We  need 
not  therefore  be  surprised  if  we  find  this  point  of  view 
predominant  in  Hebrew  prophecy.  And  yet  we  should 
feel  disappointed  if  we  failed  to  discover  at  least  the 
rudiments  of  a  new  way  of  thinking  in  harmony  with  a 
monotheistic  creed,  traces  of  the  idea  that  the  individual 
man  is  of  some  account  to  God.  Prophecy  itself,  by  its 
very  existence,  is  a  witness  to  this  truth.  For  what  does 
it  mean  but  this,  that  God  reveals  Himself,  "  His  secrrit, '  * 
>  Jer.  TtL  4.  12.  *  Amoi  iii.  7. 


188  APOLOGETICa. 

the  present  truth,  not  to  or  through  the  nation,  but  to  and 
through  the  individual  spirit.  It  would  be  strange,  indeed, 
if  the  men  whom  God  so  highly  favoured,  "His  servants 
the  prophets,"  ^  had  not  a  word  to  say  in  behalf  of  ordinary 
men,  but  allowed  them  to  lose  themselves  in  the  national 
organisuL  But  the  fact  is  not  so.  Even  in  Isaiah  the 
dawn  of  individualism  may  be  descried.  The  Maker  of 
Israel  is  also  called  the  Maker  of  man.  "At  that  day 
shall  a  man  look  to  his  Maker,  and  his  eyes  shall  have 
respect  to  the  Holy  One  of  Israel"  *  A  century  later  the 
new  thought  has  assumed  larger  dimensions.  In  two  ways 
Jeremiah  constitutes  himself  an  advocate  of  the  claims  of 
the  individual :  by  contradicting  the  old  adage  about  the 
fathers  eating  sour  grapes  and  the  children's  teeth  being 
set  on  edge,  and  by  claiming  for  the  individual,  however 
insignificant,  an  immediate  knowledge  of  God.'  In  the 
one  case  he  asserts  personal  responsibility  against  the  law 
of  heredity,  and  in  the  other  he  vindicates  the  independ- 
ence of  the  individual  in  his  religious  relations  to  God  of 
all  mediation  by  priestly  representativea  It  is  a  great 
word,  that  spoken  by  the  prophet  in  his  oracle  of  the  New 
Covenant,  concerning  the  immediate  knowledge  of  God : 
greater  than  he  knows.  It  portends  religious  revolution ; 
it  anticipates  a  time  when  the  true  worshipper  in  every 
land  shall  worship  the  Father  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 

In  every  land,  for  the  fellowship  of  the  individual  spirit 
with  God  involves  universalism.  That  a  universal  world- 
wide religion  was  a  necessary  consequence  of  their  own 
principles,  was  not  as  clear  to  the  prophets  as  it  is  to  us. 
God  never  reveals  to  men  truth,  with  daylight  brightness, 
so  long  before  the  time  of  fulfilment.  In  the  prophetic 
age,  the  light  of  universalism  was  but  the  light  of  a  star 
in  the  night.  But  to  that  extent  it  did  shine  even  in  the 
eighth  century  B.C.  witness  the  oracle  of  the  mountain  of 
Jehovah's  house,  preserved  both   by  Isaiah  and  by  Micah.* 

*  Amos  iiL  7.  ■  Isa.  ivii.  7. 

•  J«r.  xxxL  80,  84.  *  laa.  ii.  1-6  ;  Micah  iv.  1-5. 


THE   RELIGION    OF   THE   PROPHETS.  189 

This  remarkable  prophecy,  apparently  proceeding  from  some 
older  prophet,  points  to  something  higher  than  a  political 
influence  exerted  on  surrounding  tribes  by  a  reformed 
Israel,  in  which  the  ideal  of  a  holy  nation  with  a  just, 
wise  king  at  its  head  has  been  realised.  The  very  fact 
that  both  Isaiah  and  Micah  deemed  the  anonymous  utter- 
ance worthy  of  embodiment  in  their  own  prophecies,  may 
be  taken  as  evidence  that  its  meaning  is  not  exhausted 
by  so  comparatively  commonplace  an  idea.  It  predicts, 
surely,  the  extension  of  Israel's  religion  among  the  nations, 
the  spread  of  the  knowledge  and  fear  of  Jehovah,  and  the 
establishment  of  peace  through  community  in  faith  and 
worship.  The  fair  picture  is  similar  to  that  presented  in 
Isaiah's  own  prediction  of  a  happy  time  when  Israel  shall 
be  a  third  with  Egypt  and  with  Assyria,  all  three  blessed 
of  Jehovah  and  owned  by  Him  as  His  united  people : 
"  Blessed  be  Egypt  my  people,  and  Assyria  the  work  of 
my  hands,  and  Israel  mine  inheritance."*  Egypt  and 
Assyria,  the  great  rival  powers  between  which  the  petty 
state  of  Israel  was  ever  in  danger  of  being  crushed,  repre- 
sent the  outside  nations — the  world  beyond  the  pale  of 
the  chosen  people.  And  the  meaning  is  that  in  the  good 
time  coming  the  distinction  between  that  people  and 
heathendom  shall  cease.  Jehovah  shall  own  as  His  chosen 
all  the  representative  heathen  nations,  applying  to  each  of 
them  epithets  expressive  of  peculiar  and  intimate  relations : 
"  My  people,"  "  the  works  of  my  hands,"  equivalent  in 
import  to  the  epithet,  "mine  inheritance,"  applied  to 
Israel  A  beautiful  poetic  dream,  we  may  think,  but  very 
unlikely,  this  union  in  the  true  religion.  But  is  it  more 
unlikely  than  concord  and  peace  between  three  such  peoples 
in  the  lower  sphere  of  politics  ?  The  prophetic  mind 
lived  in  the  region  of  improbable  and  apparently  impossible 
ideals.  And  this  dream  of  Isaiah's,  whether  realisable  or 
not,  is  one  which  would  naturally  suggest  itself  to  one 
who  believed  that  Jehovah  was  the  sole  true  God.  What 
>  Isa.  xlz.  24,  25. 


190  AFOLOGETICaL 

more  desirable  than  that  the  trae  Gkxl  shoald  be  nniversally 
recognised;  how  could  earnest  believers  in  Him  help 
cherishing  such  a  desire  ? 

Such  was  the  religion  of  the  prophets,  such  their  con- 
ception of  God  and  of  His  relations  to  the  world,  to  the 
nations,  to  Israel,  and  to  man.  It  is  admittedly  a  unique 
phenomenon  in  the  religious  history  of  the  human  race, 
rising  above  all  other  ancient  thoughts  of  deity  in  solitary 
grandeur.  Whence  came  it,  how  is  it  to  be  accounted 
for  ?  This  is  a  question  not  easy  to  answer  on  naturalistic 
principles.  Various  suggestions  have  been  made,  the  most 
plausible  being  that  of  Eenan,  that  the  religion  of  Israel 
as  seen  at  its  best  in  the  prophets  was  the  outcome  of  a 
monotheistic  tendency  inherent  in  the  Semitic  races.  Grant- 
ing the  tendency,  which  however  has  been  gravely  disputed, 
how  did  it  come  about  that  it  attained  its  proper  develop- 
ment only  in  the  Hebrew  member  of  a  large  family  T 
Reference  has  already  been  made  to  the  educative  effect  of 
the  appearance  on  Israel's  horizon  of  the  great  Eastern 
power ;  and  there  can  be  no  question  that  the  new  political 
situation  would  tend  to  widen  the  thoughts  of  observing 
and  reflecting  men.  But  the  rise  of  the  Assyrian  power 
could  not  create  the  prophets,  or  the  prophetic  type  of 
religious  thought ;  at  most  it  could  only  stimulate  into  a 
quicker  and  ampler  growth  seeds  of  thought  pre-existing 
in  prophetic  minds.  It  is  unnecessary  to  say  that  the 
religious  ideas  of  the  prophets  are  not  a  mere  reflection  of 
the  current  opinion  of  their  countrymen.  Their  constant 
complaints  against  prevailing  religious  fashions  are  con- 
clusive evidence  of  this.  The  prophets  were  not  echoea 
They  were  not  the  mouthpiece  of  the  majority.  They 
were  in  a  hopeless  minority — a  remark,  by  the  way,  which 
applies  to  all  the  men  of  revelation.  The  men  whose 
golden,  imperishable  utterances  are  recorded  in  the  Bible, 
whether  in  the  Old  or  in  the  New  Testament,  were  all 
men  whose  back  was  at  the  wall  fighting  against  heavy 
odds,  and  who  seemeiJ  to  their  contemporaries  heretic*  and 


THE    RELIGION   OF   THE   PROPHETS.  191 

blasphemers.  For  their  message  was  ever  some  new  word 
of  God,  which  blind  followers  ct  religious  tradition  refused 
to  hear.  How  strange  that  those  who  pay  the  most 
ostentatious  homage  to  a  book  thus  originating  should  be 
in  spirit  the  children  of  the  men  who  did  their  best  to 
prevent  it  from  coming  into  existence  ! 

The  prophets  themselves  had  no  doubt  as  to  whence 
their  knowledge  of  God  came.  It  was,  they  felt,  a  revela- 
tion direct  from  heaven.  It  was  in  this  belief  they  spoke 
unfamiliar,  unwelcome  truth ;  by  this  belief  they  were 
emboldened  to  speak  in  the  face  of  all  possible  contradic- 
tion. They  could  not  help  themselves :  they  must  utter 
the  thought  that  by  divine  inspiration  had  arisen  in  their 
minds.  The  word  of  Jehovah  was  as  a  fire  in  their  heart 
In  the  expressive  language  of  Amos  :  "  The  Hon  hath  roared, 
who  will  not  fear  ?  the  Lord  God  hath  spoken,  who  can 
but  prophesy?"^  What  had  God  spoken?  That  Israel, 
just  because  she  was  Jehovah's  chosen,  must  be  specially 
punished  for  her  iniquities.  In  this  practical  ethical 
manner  does  the  truth  come  home  to  the  prophet's  heart 
that  Jehovah  is  no  merely  national  partial  deity.  And  in 
this  instance  we  can  see  how  true  is  the  saying  that  the 
secret  of  the  Lord  is  with  them  that  fear  Him ;  in  other 
words,  that  moral  simplicity  is  a  condition  of  receiving 
divine  revelations.  "Surely,"  says  Amos,  "the  Lord  God 
will  do  nothing,  but  He  revealeth  His  secret  unto  His 
servants  the  prophets."*  Unless  the  prophets  had  been 
exceptionally  pure-hearted  men  they  would  have  remained 
as  ignorant  of  God's  secret  as  their  fellow-countrymen. 
They  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  initiation  because  they  were 
proof  against  common  prejudices  and  passions,  and  loved 
righteousness  more  than  country.  They  so  heartily  hated 
wrong — greed,  oppression,  cruelty,  vileness — that  it  was 
impossible  for  them  to  believe  that  any  prerogative,  sup- 
posed or  real,  could  screen  a  wicked  nation  from  the 
punitive  action  of  the  moial  order  of  the  world.  Israel 
1  Amoa  liL  8.  >  Abm  UL  7. 


192  APOLOGETICS, 

might  be  Grod's  beloved,  but  Israel  must  suffer  and  even 
perish  if  she  played  the  harlot.  In  a  word,  the  ethical 
monotheism  of  Hebrew  prophecy  has  for  one  of  its  neces- 
sary presuppositions  the  intense  ethicalism  of  the  prophets 
themselTea 


CHAPTER    m. 

THl  PBOPHETIO  IDEA  OF  ISRAEL'S  VOOATIOlf  AND  HISTOBY. 

Leterature. — Trench,  The  Desire  of  all  Nations  (the  Hul- 
gean  Lecture  for  1846) ;  Maurice,  The  Beligions  of  the  World 
and  their  Relations  to  Christianity  (Boyle  Lecture  for  1846) ; 
Ewald,  Die  Lehre  der  Bibel  vom  Gott,  Band  I.  (translated 
by  T.  &  T.  Clark,  contains  Theory  of  Eevelation  and  State- 
ment on  Eevelation  in  Heathendom  and  the  Worth  of  Pagan 
Eeligion)  ;  Duhm,  Die  Theologie  der  Propheten  ;  Bunsen,  God 
in  History  ;  Hegel,  Beligions-Philosophie  ;  Temple, "  The  Edu- 
cation of  the  "World  "  in  Essays  and  Reviews  ;  Bruce,  The  Chief 
End  of  Revelation  ;  Lux  Mundi  (Essay  4th, "  The  Preparation 
in  History  for  Christ "). 

In  last  chapter  we  saw  that  the  prophets  regarded  Israel 
as  an  elect  people.  There  this  view  came  before  us  inci- 
dentally, simply  in  its  bearing  on  the  prophetic  idea  of  God, 
as  contributing  to  the  proof  that  Jehovah  was  not  merely 
the  national  God  of  Israel,  but  the  God  of  the  whole  earth 
who  had  freely  chosen  Israel  to  be  a  peculiar  people.  In 
the  present  chapter  the  subject  of  Israel's  election  will  be 
considered  under  a  wider  aspect  and  in  more  varied  relations, 
in  connection  with  prophetic  ideas  of  Israel's  vocation  and 
past  history,  and  with  the  religious  condition  of  the  world 
at  large. 

It  wiU  hardly  be  necessary  to  offer  further  proof  that 
the  idea  of  election  was  present  to  the  mind  of  the  prophets 
from  the  eighth  century  onwards.  It  has  been  asserted, 
indeed,  that  it  is  only  in  the  writings  of  the  unknown 
prophet  of  the  exile,  to  whom  we  owe  the  second  part  of 


PBOPHETIO  IDSA   OV   ISBAEL's   VOCATION,   ETC.      193 

Isaiah,  that  that  idea  begins  to  play  its  part,^  and  it  is 
certainly  true  that  it  occupies  a  place  of  exceptional 
prominence  in  that  remarkable  group  of  prophecies.  But 
the  idea,  if  not  the  very  word  election,  is  traceable  in  all 
the  prophets  of  the  eighth  century. 

It  finds  very  distinct  expression  in  the  words  of  Amos, 
already  quoted :  "  You  only  have  I  known  of  all  the  families 
of  the  earth."*  It  underlies  the  words  put  into  the  mouth 
of  Jehovah  by  Hosea, "  When  Israel  was  a  child,  then  I  loved 
him,  and  called  my  son  out  of  Egypt,"'  which  carry  the  elec- 
tion back  to  the  time  of  the  Exodua  Isaiah  echoes  Hosea's 
thought  when  he  represents  God  as  complaining,  "  Hear,  O 
heavens,  and  give  ear,  0  earth :  for  Jehovah  hath  spoken :  I 
have  nourished  and  brought  up  children,  and  they  have 
rebelled  against  me.  The  ox  knoweth  his  owner,  and  the  ass 
his  master's  crib :  but  Israel  doth  not  know,  my  people  doth 
not  consider."*  The  thought  recurs  in  the  song  of  the  vine- 
yard, in  which  Israel  is  compared  to  a  choice  vine  planted  in 
Jehovah's  vineyard  and  tended  with  the  utmost  care.^  In 
varied  language  Micah  repeats  the  diviue  complaint,  as 
reported  by  his  brother  prophet:  "Hear  ye,  0  mountains, 
Jehovah's  controversy,  and  ye  strong  foundations  of  the 
earth :  for  Jehovah  hath  a  controversy  with  His  people,  and 
he  will  plead  with  Israel  0  my  people,  what  have  I  done 
unto  thee  ?  and  wherein  have  I  wearied  thee  ?  testify  against 
me.  For  I  brought  thee  up  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  and 
redeemed  thee  out  of  the  house  of  servants;  and  I  sent 
before  thee  Moses,  Aaron,  and  Miriam."  • 

The  one  thought  running  through  all  these  passages  is : 
special  favours  conferred  by  God  on  Israel,  imposing  on 
her  special  obligations.  The  God  of  the  whole  earth  has 
distinguished  Israel  from  other  nations  by  making  her  His 
peculiar  people,  His  son.  His  vine,  and  He  expects  from  the 
chosen  race  corresponding  fidelity,  obedience,  and  fruitful- 
ness.     And  He  complains  that  His  just  expectations  have 

*  Dnhm,  Die  Theologie  der  Propheten,  p.  282.  '  Amos  iil  2. 

•  Hos.  xL  1.  The  same  idea  is  still  more  pathetically  expressed  by  the 
wmparison  of  Israel  to  a  wife,  which  pervades  Hosea's  piophecies. 

«  Isa.  L  2,  8.  »  Isa.  v.  1-7.  «  Micah  vi.  »-4. 

N 


194  APOLOGETIOS. 

not  been  realised,  making  His  complaint  to  the  heavens  and 
the  earth,  to  the  universe  of  being,  of  which  not  less  than 
of  Israel  He  is  Maker  and  Lord. 

From  these  prophetic  utterances  it  is  obvious  that  Israel 
is  not  only  an  elect  people,  but  that  she  has  been  elected 
for  a  purpose.  God  has  chosen  her  not  merely  to  privilege, 
that  she  may  be  more  fortunate  than  other  peoples,  but  that 
she  may  fulfil  a  high  vocation.  The  nature  of  that  vocation 
is  variously  indicated.  The  prophet  of  the  exile  puts  it 
thus :  "  This  people  have  I  formed  for  myself ;  they  shall 
show  forth  my  praise."  *  The  most  distinct  statement  of 
God's  purpose  in  choosing  Israel  is  given  in  Ex.  xix.  5,  a 
sentence  which,  at  whatever  date  written,  has  a  genuine 
prophetic  ring :  "  Now  therefore,  if  ye  will  obey  my  voice 
indeed,  and  keep  my  covenant,  ye  shall  be  a  peculiar 
treasure  unto  me  above  all  people :  for  all  the  earth  is 
mine :  and  ye  shall  be  unto  me  a  kingdom  of  priests,  and 
an  holy  nation.*  Israel  called  to  be  a  kingdom  of  God,  a 
community  of  men  devoted  to  God  and  to  righteousness — 
such  is  the  divine  ideal  as  proclaimed  from  Mount  Sinai, 
with  which  all  prophetic  utterances  consent.  In  this  view 
of  Israel's  vocation  it  may  be  difi&cult  to  satisfy  impartial 
students  of  her  history  that  her  election  was  a  reality.  It 
is  by  what  a  people  does  that  the  world  judges  whether  she 
be  an  elect  people  or  not  But  did  Israel  realise  in  her 
history  the  divine  ideal  of  a  holy  nation  ?  Was  it  not  the 
constant  complaint  of  the  prophets  chat  she  had  failed  to 
do  so  ?  God  looked  for  grapes,  and  behold  wild  grapes ; 
**  for  judgment,  but  behold  oppression ;  for  righteousness, 
but  behold  a  cry.***  It  is  easier  to  see  the  reality  of 
Israel's  election  when  we  think  of  her  as  chosen  to  receive 
the  knowledge  of  the  true  God  and  to  be  the  home  of  the 
true  religion.  In  that  view  her  election  is  a  fact,  not 
merely  a  theological  idea.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  religion 
of  Israel,  by  comparison  with  the  religions  of  the  Gentiles, 
is  the  true  religion — the  best  thing  the  world  has  seen, 
^  Im.  zM.  21.  *  lu.  T.  7. 


PROPHETIC   IDEA   OF   ISRAEL'S    VOCATION,    ETC.       195 

the  best  thing  possible.  Her  idea  of  God,  as  formu- 
lated by  her  noblest  sons,  is  her  glory.*  As  the  vehicle 
through  which  God  communicated  to  the  world  the 
worthiest  thoughts  concerning  Himself,  Israel  realised  her 
vocation  by  producing  the  prophets.  No  matter  how  far 
short  the  mass  of  the  people  fell  in  thought  and  in  conduct, 
God's  purpose  was  saved  from  being  stultified  by  the 
appearance  in  due  time  of  men  like  Amos,  Hosea,  Isaiah, 
Jeremiah,  and  the  great  prophet  of  the  exile.  It  was  worth 
while  planting  a  vine  that  was  to  bear  such  generous  fruit. 
If  the  chosen  people  perish,  no  matter;  Hebrew  prophecy 
remains,  an  imperishable  treasure,  proof  to  all  time  that 
God  took  in  hand  no  vain  task  when  He  became  the 
religious  instructor  of  the  child  whom  He  brought  out  of 
Egypt,  beginning  at  the  beginning,  and  playing  the  part  of 
nurse  to  the  infant  Ephraim,  teaching  him  to  go,  taking 
him  by  the  arms  to  encourage  him  in  his  first  attempts.' 
The  permanent  results  of  that  divine  training  are  the  sum 
of  moral  duty  in  the  Decalogue,  the  grand  conception  of 
a  kingdom  of  God  acting  as  a  ferment  in  society,  the  true 
idea  of  God  as  the  Maker  and  Kuler  of  the  world,  as  One 
who  Himself  delights  in  the  exercise  of  lovingkindness, 
judgment,  and  righteousness,'  and  who  requires  of  His 
worshippers,  above  all  things,  "to  do  justly,  and  to  love 
mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  God."* 

The  prophetic  references  to  Israel's  past  history  are  all 
dominated  by  the  idea  of  election.  The  interest  of  the 
prophets  in  that  history  lies  in  the  proofs  it  affords  of  God's 
gracious  favour  and  of  the  obligations  thence  arising. 
They  use  the  past  to  enforce  the  lessons  of  the  present. 
Their  references,  therefore,  to  ancient  times  are  incidental 
and  comparatively  few,  their  business  being  not  to  chronicle 
but  to  preach.  Though  few,  however,  these  occasional 
•Uusiona  are  important,  and  cover  the  outstanding  events  of 
the  memorable  story  of  Israel's  beginnings.    There  are  slight 

»  Isa.  Ix.  19 :  "Thy  God  thy  glory."  •  Hoa.  ri.  S. 

•  Jer.  iz.  S4.  *  Micah  tL  8. 


196  APOLOGETICS. 

hints  concerning  the  patriarchs  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob/ 
more  numerous  and  explicit  statements  concerning  the 
Egyptian  bondage,  the  Exodus,  and  the  sojourn  in  the 
wilderness.*  These  historical  allusions,  taken  together,  give 
U8  an  outline  of  Israel's  early  fortunes,  such  as  might  have 
been  gathered  from  one  of  the  documents  out  of  which  the 
Pentateuch  was  ultimately  constructed,  say  the  Jehovistic, 
and  which  may  actually  have  been  the  source  whence  the 
prophets  drew  their  information.  The  question  has  been 
asked,  What  is  the  value  of  these  notices  ?  and  the  answer 
of  some  critics  is  that  they  yield  us  only  the  idea  which 
was  entertained  of  Israel's  early  history  in  the  eighth  century 
B.C.  Some  have  gone  so  far  as  to  doubt  the  reality  of  the 
sojourn  in  Egypt  and  the  Exodus,  and  to  regard  even 
Moses  as  a  legendary  personage,  not  to  speak  of  the 
patriarchs,  whose  names  are  supposed  to  denote  tribes 
rather  than  individuals,  and  whose  family  story  is  con- 
ceived to  be  a  legendary  representation  of  the  relations 
subsisting  between  the  group  of  peoples  to  which  the  Beni- 
Israel  belonged.  The  more  sober-minded  critics,  however, 
regard  the  Egyptian  episode  and  the  redemptive  work  of 
Moses  as  unquestionable  facts,  and  are  not  indisposed  to 
find  some  historic  material  even  in  the  patriarchal  story. 
These  critical  questions  do  not  vitally  concern  us  here: 
they  may  seriously  affect  the  view  to  be  taken  of  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures,  but  they  are  of  subordinate  importance 
in  relation  to  the  purpose  we  have  now  in  view.  The 
important  question  for  us  is,  Is  the  prophetic  concep- 
tion of  Israel's  past  true,  at  least  in  principle  if  not  in 
detail  ? 

As  has  been  stated,  the  prophets  look  at  Israel's  past 
in  the  light  of  the  idea  of  election.  Thus  Micah  writes : 
"  Thou  wilt  perform  the  truth  to  Jacob,  and  the  mercy  to 
Abraham,  which  Thou  hast  sworn  unto  our  fathers  from 

^  Hos.  xiL  4,  13  ;  Micah  viL  20  ;  Isa.  xxix.  22. 

*  Amos  ii.  9,  10 ;  y.  25 ;  ix.  7 ;  Hos.  ii  16;TiiL  18;ix.8»<izLl) 
xU.  9.  18 :  ziiL  4,  6  ;  Micah  ri  8,  4 ;  tU.  15. 


PROPHETIC    IDEA   OF   ISRAEL'S   VOCATION,    ETC.      197 

the  days  of  old,"  *  implying  that  God  made  a  covenant 
with  the  patriarchs,  and  promised  them  special  blessings. 
And  Hosea  introduces  Jehovah,  saying,  "  I  am  the  Lord 
thy  God  from  the  land  of  Egypt,  and  thou  shalt  know  no 
god  but  me  :  for  there  is  no  saviour  beside  me."  *  In  general 
form  the  prophetic  doctrine  is  that  in  the  beginning  of 
Israel's  history  God  in  His  providence  acted  towards  her  as 
an  electing  God.  If  they  were  mistaken  in  that,  their 
prophetic  inspiration  is  compromised  ;  but  if  they  were 
not  mistaken,  their  prophetic  inspiration  stands  intact,  even 
if  they  were  not  perfectly  informed  in  special  matters  of 
fact ;  for  their  function,  as  already  said,  was  not  to  narrate 
facts,  but  to  teach  the  right  point  of  view  for  reading  truly 
the  religious  significance  of  Israel's  whole  history.  The 
creation  of  Israel,  like  the  creation  of  the  world,  may  have 
been  a  much  more  complicated  process  than  it  appears  in 
the  sacred  page ;  and  the  secular  history  of  the  process,  if 
it  could  be  written,  might  assume  a  very  different  appear- 
ance in  many  respects  to  the  biblical,  just  as  the  scientific 
history  of  the  physical  creation  differs  widely  from  that 
given  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis.  But  the  main  point 
is  that  throughout  the  period  of  obscure  beginnings  God 
was  forming  a  people  whose  destiny  it  was  to  give  to  the 
world  the  true  religion.  As  the  story  of  the  beginnings  is 
told  in  the  Pentateuch,  and  more  briefly  in  the  Prophets, 
that  is  very  apparent ;  and  the  merit  of  the  story  so  told 
is  that  it  does  make  the  religious  lesson  so  apparent.  And 
if  we  are  inclined  to  receive  the  lesson  we  shall  not  feel 
tempted  to  undue  scepticism,  but  be  ready  to  receive  the 
story  of  the  patriarchs,  and  of  the  Exodus,  and  of  Moses,  as 
substantially  true ;  as  just  such  a  history  as  Israel  was 
likely  to  have,  if  she  was  to  be  the  divine  instrument  for 
introducing  the  true  religion. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  the  early  generationa 
of  Israelites  were  conscious  of  their  high  destiny,  or  con- 
eeived  of  the  events  that  were  happening  as  signs  of  a 
1  Micah  vii.  20.  *  Hob.  ziii.  4. 


198  APOLOGETICS. 

divine  elective  purpose  towards  them.     They  might  he  an 

elect  people,  yet  for  a  while  remain  unconscious  of  the 
fact.     It  is  conceivable  that  Israel  first  attained  to  clear 
consciousness  of   her  vocation  through  the  prophets,  and 
that   in   the   initial  stage  of   her  history  she  thought  of 
Jehovah,  not  as  the  God  of  the  whole  earth  choosing  her 
for  a  peculiar  people,  but  simply  as  a  national  god  doing 
his  best  for  the  people  to  which  he  was  nationally  related. 
Even  if  the  fact  were  so,  she  might  still  be  the  subject  of 
such  a  choice  from  the  first.     I  am  far  from  thinking  that 
the  fact  was  indeed  so,  or  that  the  generation  of  the  Exodus 
was  as  completely  in  the  dark    as  some    modern  critics 
imagine.      An  event  of  such  magnitude  as  the  deliverance 
out  of  Egypt  could  hardly  take  place  without  exercising 
an  illuminating  influence  on  susceptible  spirits,  and  one  can 
well  believe  that  the  prophetic  mind  of  Moses  anticipated 
the  great  discovery  of  the  eighth  century  B.C.,  and  read  the 
Exodus  in  the  light  of  an  elective  purpose  of  grace  towards 
the  emancipated  people.     The  gospel  of  the  Exodus,  con- 
tained   in    Ex.   xix.    5,  already    quoted,  may    have    been 
formulated  as  it  there  stands  long  after  the  time  of  Moses, 
but  there  is  no  good  reason  to  doubt  that  it  truly  reflects 
his  thought.     Looking  back  on  what  Jehovah  had   done 
unto  the  Egyptians,  and  considering  how  He  had  borne  the 
enslaved   race,  as   on  eagle's    wings,   out   of   the  land   of 
bondage,  he  took  out  of  the  wondrous  story  this  meaning: 
the  one  true  God  is  going  to  make  out  of  my  despised  and 
down-trodden  people  a  great  nation — great,  not  in  numbers 
or  in  warlike  power,  but  in  character,  a  kingdom  of  God 
in  the  earth. 

It  may  not  be  so  easy  to  feel  quite  sure  that  the  gospel 
of  election  in  Abraham's  call  is  historical,  and  not  a 
projection  backwards  into  the  dawn  of  Israel's  history  of 
the  prophetic  conception  of  her  destiny.  The  latter 
alternative  might  be  admitted  compatibly  with  the  recogni- 
tion of  the  ideal  truth  of  the  construction  put  by  the 
prophets  on  the  story  of  Abraliam's   life,  and  even  of  the 


PROPHETIC   IDEA   OF   ISRAEL'S   VOCATION,    ETC.      19d 

substantial  accuracy  of  the  main  outlines  of  the  story. 
The  call  of  the  patriarch  implies  some  such  fact  basis  as 
this,  that  he  left  the  land  of  his  birth  partly,  at  least,  from 
motives  of  religious  discontent,  that  he  wandered  westward 
in  search  of  another  place  of  abode,  and  that  on  his  arrival 
in  Canaan  the  thought  took  possession  of  hia  heart  that 
that  land  would  become  the  home  of  a  people  sprung  from 
his  loins,  destined  to  play  a  remarkable  part  in  history. 
These  facts,  read  with  a  prophetic  eye,  were  sufficient  to  re- 
veal a  divine  intention  such  as  is  expressed  in  the  call,  to 
separate  Abraham  from  his  own  people,  and  make  him  the 
father  of  a  new  race  that  should  occupy  a  land  specially 
prepared  for  them,  and  be  there  a  peculiar  people,  worship- 
ping the  true  God,  and  communicating  eventually  the  true 
religion  to  the  world.  To  Abraham  himself  the  facts 
might  mean  much  less.  His  departure  from  his  native 
country  might  be  to  his  consciousness  the  result  of  an 
irresistible  impulse,  rather  than  of  a  deliberate  purpose ;  the 
religious  motive  might  be  a  vague  dissatisfaction  with 
prevalent  religious  beliefs  and  practices,  rather  than  a  new 
clearly  conceived  idea  of  God;  the  hope  of  founding  a 
nation,  peculiar  in  character  and  vocation,  might  be  to  hia 
feeling  only  a  persistent  presentiment  of  which  no  account 
could  be  given,  a  sort  of  fixed  idea,  for  cherishing  which  a 
man  might  be  reckoned  a  madman  or  a  sage,  according  to 
the  event.  If  this  were  Abraham's  state  of  mind  at  the 
period  of  the  migration,  then  he  would  not  be  conscious  of 
receiving  such  a  call  as  the  narrative  in  Genesis  reports. 
Nevertheless  that  call  gives  the  true  ideal  significance  of 
the  events  as  I  have  supposed  them  to  happea 

The  closing  words  of  the  call  of  Abraham,  "In  thee 
shall  aU  the  families  of  the  earth  be  blessed  (or  blesa 
themselves),"  imply  that  Israel's  election  had  a  reference 
to  the  general  good  of  the  world,  that  she  was  chosen,  not 
for  her  own  sake  merely,  but  for  the  sake  of  mankind  at 
large.  It  mast  be  so.  Election  involves  nniversalism. 
It  is  a  method  by  which  the  few  are  qualified  to  bless  the 


200  APOLOGETICS. 

many.  The  election  of  Israel,  we  saw,  involved  universal- 
ism  in  reference  to  the  idea  of  God:  th.  electing  God  is 
ipso  facto  the  God  over  alL  What  is  now  insisted  on  is  that 
election  equally  involves  univeisulism  in  reference  to  the 
vocation  of  the  elect.  Nations  are  never  chosen  for  their 
own  sakes,  and  therefore  nations  which  have  never  done 
any  good  worth  speaking  of,  except  to  themselves,  cannot 
with  any  propriety  be  called  elect  nations.  The  Chinese 
nation  has  lasted  so  long,  and  is  still  so  vigorous,  that  one 
might  be  tempted  to  think  her  a  chosen  people  pecuKarly 
favoured  of  Heaven,  But,  populous  and  long  -  lasting 
beyond  comparison  though  she  be,  China  is  not  worthy  of 
the  name,  because  she  has  lived  only  for  herselt  More 
deserving  the  honourable  designation  is  a  small  people 
which  gives  birth  to  a  great  boon  for  mankind,  and  dies  in 
childbirth.  Such  a  people  was  Israel  A  very  insignifi- 
cant people  numerically,  compared  with  China;  but  that 
is  no  drawback.  It  is  the  way  of  Providence  to  select 
small  nations  to  be  its  chosen  instruments  ;  and  it  is  a  way 
of  wisdom,  because  it  serves  to  make  clear  that  the  import- 
ance of  a  people  lies  not  in  its  numbers,  but  in  the 
contribution  which  it  makes  to  the  higher  good  of  the 
world. 

Though  a  petty  people,  Israel  seemed  destined  by  her 
whole  history,  and  even  by  her  very  geographical  position^ 
to  be  the  source  of  a  universal  influence  in  the  sphere  of 
religion.  From  first  to  last  she  came  into  contact  with  all 
the  great  nations  of  antiquity.  She  came  originally  from 
the  valley  of  the  Euphrates,  the  seat  of  great  Eastern 
monarchies.  She  went  down  to  Egypt  and  sojourned  long 
enough  there  to  learn  the  ways  of  the  children  of  Ham. 
Then  she  settled  in  the  land  of  promise,  through  which  ran 
the  great  highway  between  Egypt  and  the  East,  along 
which  in  later  centuries  the  armies  of  mighty  nations 
were  to  march  to  conquest  or  defeat  To  the  ambition  of 
Oriental  despotism  she  at  length  fell  a  victim,  and  in 
consequence  returned  a  captive  to  the  land  whence  she 


PEOPHETIC    IDEA    OF    ISRAEL*S   VOCATION,    ETC.      201 

had  migrated.  Her  later  fortunes  brought  her  under  the 
dominion  of  the  great  powers  of  the  West.  Egypt,  Assyria, 
Babylon,  Persia,  Greece,  Eome  were  in  succession  her 
masters  and  her  teachers.  It  might  have  been  expected 
that  such  an  experience  would  have  developed  in  her  a 
cosmopolitan  spirit.  It  did  not,  except  in  the  few.  But 
the  "great  dialectic  of  the  world's  history"*  did  tend 
to  develop  in  this  people  the  true  idea  of  God,  and  when 
that  had  gained  adequate  expression  through  the  voice  of 
prophecy  it  was  a  permanent  gain  to  the  world,  whatever 
became  of  the  people  among  whom  it  originated,  and 
however  they  might  fail  to  realise  the  value  of  their  own 
discovery. 

The  principle  of  election  applied  to  religion  creates  an 
apologetic  problem  with  reference  to  the  heathen  world. 
Election  to  distinction  in  philosophy  or  art  causes  no 
difficulty,  because,  however  important  in  their  own  place, 
these  things  can  hardly  be  said  to  belong  to  the  chief  end 
or  chief  good  of  man.  But  religion,  and  conduct  as 
afifected  by  it,  are  of  vital  concern  to  every  man,  both  for 
this  life  and  for  the  next,  and  if  the  election  of  one  people 
meant  the  exclusion  from  divine  mercy  and  grace  of  all 
other  peoples  it  would  necessarily  appear  to  the  enlightened 
Christian  conscience  open  to  grave  objection,  and  even 
altogether  incredible.  The  question  thus  raised  must 
always  have  presented  a  difficulty  to  men  imbued  with  the 
spirit  of  Christ,  but  it  has  become  more  acute  within  the 
last  half  century,  since  the  religions  of  the  world  have  been 
made  the  subject  of  comparative  study.  Within  that 
period  the  apologetic  attitude  towards  Gentile  religion  has 
undergone  a  great  change.  Since  the  science  of  compara- 
tive religion  came  into  vogue  the  modern  mind  has  resiled 
from  the  pessimistic  views  of  ethnic  religions  entertained 

*  The  expression  is  Vatke's.  Vide  Die  Rdigion  de»  Alten  Testawtnta, 
{k  440.  Vatke  deals  with  the  religion  of  Israel  on  the  principles  of  the 
Hegelian  philosophy  in  a  masterly  way,  and  with  a  breadth  of  txeatoMBk 
w«Hrthy  if  Hegel  himself 


ZU2  APOLOGETICS. 

by  the  early  apologists,  and  still  widely  prevalent  in  the 
Church.  The  point  of  view  occupied  by  the  apologists  of 
the  patristic  period  was  a  very  simple  one.  They  held, 
and  sought  to  prove,  that  the  pagan  religions,  and  especi- 
ally those  of  Greece  and  Rou)e,  were  false,  corrupt,  and 
corrupting,  and  that  the  little  truth  that  was  in  them  was 
borrowed  from  Hebrew  sources.  Some,  indeed,  of  the 
more  large-minded  and  philosophic  fathers,  such  as  Justin 
Martyr,  recognised  elements  of  truth  in  pagan  writers  which 
had  not  come  to  them  from  without  by  a  borrowing 
process,  but  rather  from  the  inward  illumination  of  the 
Logos,  the  light  "  which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh 
into  the  world."  Now  Christian  apologists  are  more 
inclined  to  sympathise  with  the  opinion  expressed  by  an 
eminent  student  of  the  science  of  religion  that  "  every 
religion  had  some  truth,  nay,  was  a  true  religion,  was  the 
only  religion  possible  at  the  time."*  No  professed 
apologist,  probably,  would  care  to  adopt  this  precise 
language,  or  to  endorse  so  optimistic  an  estimate ;  but 
most  recent  writers  on  apologetic  have  shown  a  disposition 
to  go  as  far  in  that  direction  slb  is  consistent  with  main- 
taining the  supreme  worth  of  the  Christian  faith.  The 
keynote  of  this  more  genial  modern  apologetic  was  struck 
by  Archbishop  Trench  in  his  Hulsean  Lectures  for  1846, 
entitled,  Christ  the  Desire  of  all  Nations;  or,  The  Uncon- 
scious Prophecies  of  Heathendom,  In  the  same  year  Mr. 
Maurice  delivered  a  course  of  lectures  on  the  Boyle  founda- 
tion on  The  Religions  of  the  World,  and  their  Melationa 
to  Christianity,  in  which  the  same  general  view  was  set 
forth,  which  was  only  what  was  to  be  expected  from  one 
who,  more  than  most  men,  believed  in  the  possibility  of 
finding  sermons  in  stones,  and  good  in  everything. 

Besides  the  phrase, "  the  desire  of  all  nations,"  so  happily 

chosen  by  Trench  to  suggest  and  justify  a  hopeful,  kindly 

view  of  pagan  religion,  use  has  been  made,  for  the  same 

purpose,  of  another  biblical  expression,  that  of  Paul  in  bif 

'  Max  Miiller,  Lecture*  on  tJie  Science  qfSeligion,  p.  Ml. 


PROPHETIC   IDEA   OF   ISRAEL'S   VOCATION,    ETC.      203 

Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  "  the  fulness  of  the  time."  The 
apostle  himself  employed  the  expression  in  an  apologetic 
interest,  his  purpose  being  so  to  exhibit  the  relation  between 
Judaism  and  Christianity  as  at  once  to  recognise  the  im- 
portance of  the  former  as  a  preparatory  discipline,  and  to 
justify  its  supersession  by  the  latter  when  it  had  served  its 
end.  In  modern  times  attempts  have  been  made  to  give 
to  Paul's  idea  a  wider  application,  and  to  use  his  happy 
phrase  as  a  compendious  formula  for  the  whole  religious 
history  of  mankind,  its  attraction  for  philosophic  minds 
being  that  it  makes  it  possible  to  recognise  the  relative 
value  of  all  the  great  historical  religions,  while  reserving 
for  Christianity  the  distinction  of  being  the  absolute  reli- 
gion.* The  general  truth  underlying  such  attempts  is  that 
the  whole  religious  history  of  mankind,  up  till  the  birth  of 
Christ,  may  be  brought  under  the  category  of  preparation, 
which  does  not  commit  us  to  an  optimistic  view  of  ethnic 
religions,  as  these  might  be  to  a  large  extent  fruitless 
experiments  to  find  out  God,  and  yet  help  to  prepare  the 
nations  for  welcoming  Christ  as  the  Light  of  the  world. 

These  modern  views  may  be  justified  by  the  facts 
brought  to  light  by  the  scientific  study  of  religion,  and 
they  are  certainly  such  as  it  well  becomes  Christians  to 
cherish.  But  the  question  is.  Can  they  be  entertained 
compatibly  with  acceptance  of  the  prophetic  view  of  Israel 
as  an  elect  race  chosen  by  Providence  to  receive  and  trans- 
mit the  true  knowledge  of  God  ?  If  not,  then  our  Christian 
geniality  is  in  conflict  with  our  reverence  for  prophetic 
revelation,  and  we  are  painfully  divided  against  ourselves. 

The  question  here  is  not  whether  the  tone  of  the  modern 
Christian  mind  in  reference  to  Gentile  religion  is  reflected 
in  all  parts  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  It  is  conceivable 
that  the  prophetic  idea  of  Israel  as  an  elect  people,  properly 
understood,  justifies  and  even  demands  a  more  hopeful 
view  of  Gentile  religion,  and  a  more  kindly  feeling  towards 

^  Vide,  Hegel,  Religiona- Philosophic ;  Buuaen,  Ood  in  History ;  Bishop 
Tempile  on  "  The  Education  of  the  World  "  in  Essays  and  Reviews. 


204  APOLOGETICS. 

pagans  than  is  to  be  found  in  some  parts  of  these  writinga 
It  has  been  said  that  the  people  of  Israel  did  not  at  first 
think  of  themselves  as  a  chosen  race,  and  that  when  at 
length  they  did  begin  to  entertain  this  opinion,  their  attitude 
towards  Gentiles  was  one  of  bitter  exclusiveness.  It  may 
be  so,  but  what  then  ?  We  should  simply  have  to  include 
the  indications  of  such  a  state  of  feeling  to  be  found  in 
Old  Testament  literature  among  the  element  of  legalism 
traceable  therein  —  the  elements  which  show  that  that 
literature,  however  excellent,  is  still  the  literature  of  the 
early  rudimentary  stage  of  revelation.  It  is  incidental  to 
the  method  of  election  that  the  favour  of  God  to  the 
elect  is  apt  to  be  more  laid  to  heart  by  them  than  their 
vocation,  the  privilege  rather  than  the  duty,  the  present 
separateness  rather  than  the  ultimate  comprehension.  This 
is  the  tendency  of  all  privileged  races,  societies,  and  indi- 
viduals. It  needs  a  high  order  of  mind  to  resist  the 
temptation,  and  to  remember  that  the  elect  are  chosen,  not 
for  their  own  sakes,  but  to  serve  others.  There  always 
were  those  in  Israel  who  fully  comprehended  this  truth, 
and  constantly  kept  it  in  view,  and  it  finds  frequent  and 
noble  expression  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  especially  in 
the  later  chapters  of  Isaiah,  and  in  certain  of  the  psalms, 
which  breathe  the  genuine  spirit  of  universalism.  If  a  less 
heroic  type  of  feeling  here  and  there  crops  out,  there  is  no 
cause  for  surprise. 

The  question,  therefore,  is  not  how  all  members  of  the 
chosen  race  felt  towards  the  heathen  world,  but  what  atti- 
tude is  in  harmony  with  the  hypothesis  of  an  election. 
Now,  to  arrive  at  a  right  answer,  we  must  keep  clearly 
before  our  minds  what  the  hypothesis  is.  It  is  that  the 
God  of  the  whole  earth,  having  in  view  the  religious  well- 
being  of  all  mankind,  adopted  as  His  method  the  selection 
of  a  particular  people  to  be  the  subject  of  special  training, 
BO  as  to  become  eventually  a  light  to  lighten  the  Gentiles. 
It  is  the  universal  Lord  pursuing  a  universally  beneficent 
end  by  a  temporary   religious  particularism.     No  sooner 


PROPHETIC   IDEA    OP   ISRAELS    VOCATION,    ETC.      205 

have  we  grasped  this  idea  than  we  perceive  that  three 
inferences  suggest  themselves. 

The  first  is,  that  the  universal  aim  involves  a  beneficent 
regard  towards  the  outside  nations  on  God's  part  all  along. 
For  we  cannot  reasonably  conceive  of  Grod  as  hostile  to  the 
heathen  world  up  to  a  certain  date,  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  era,  and  then  suddenly  changing  His  attitude 
from  hostility  to  friendliness,  as  earthly  monarchs  change 
their  tone  towards  each  other  for  reasons  of  state  policy.  We 
must  believe  that  He  desired  unchangeably  the  good  of  all 
everywhere,  in  all  ages,  and  while  reserving  some  great 
boon  for  a  future  age,  took  care  that  at  no  time  should  any 
people  be  entirely  without  some  token  of  His  goodwill, 
even  in  the  sphere  of  religion.  That  means  that  even  in 
the  pre-Christian  era  God  gave  to  the  Gentiles  at  least  the 
ttarlight  of  religious  knowledga  "We  should  therefore  not 
be  surprised  to  find  that  the  pagan  peoples  had  their  pro- 
phets and  seers,  or  think  it  necessary,  in  jealousy  for  the 
honour  of  Hebrew  prophets  and  Christian  apostles,  to 
disparage  the  teaching  of  the  wise  men  of  the  heathen 
world.  On  the  contrary,  our  very  belief  in  an  election  of 
one  for  the  good  of  the  many  should  lead  us  to  look  for 
traces  of  inspiration  among  pre-Christian  races,  seeing  the 
total  absence  of  these  would  cast  doubt  upon  the  reality  of 
God's  gracious  purpose  to  bless  the  many  through  the  one. 
That  a  beneficent  Being  should  cherish  such  a  purpose,  and 
for  a  time,  even  for  a  long  time,  not  execute  it  fully,  is 
conceivable;  but  one  would  certainly  expect  to  find  the 
objects  of  the  purpose  all  along  treated  in  a  manner  con- 
gruous to  the  purpose,  and  giving  promise  of  ultimate 
fulfilment. 

Secondly,  from  the  adoption  of  the  method  of  election 
for  realising  the  universal  design,  it  may  be  inferred  that 
the  pagan  religions,  on  examination,  will  show  traces  of 
marked  inferiority,  as  compared  with  the  religion  of  the 
elect  people.  If  it  turned  out  to  be  otherwise,  we  should 
justly   doubt   whether  the   election   was    either   real   or 


206  APOLOGETICS. 

requisite.  The  contrast  ought  to  be  apparent  even  at 
the  outset,  and  it  should  become  more  marked  with  the 
progress  of  time.  The  method  of  election  implies  that 
religion  cannot  be  left  to  look  after  itself,  but  needs  special 
providential  care ;  that  without  such  care  right  thoughts  of 
God,  such  as  even  pagans  may  attain  to,  are  in  danger  of 
being  lost,  or  remaining  unfruitful.  The  plant  of  religion 
may  at  first  be  a  good  vine,  but  without  special  divine 
tending  it  must  be  prone  to  degenerate  and  to  bring  forth 
wild  grapes.  This  is  what  theory  leads  us  to  expect,  and 
it  is  what  impartial  study  of  ethnic  religions  tends  to  verify. 
It  is  characteristic  of  these  religions,  not  so  much  to  be 
without  all  true  knowledge  of  God,  as  to  be  unable  to 
retain  that  knowledge,  and  to  make  the  most  of  it,  and  to 
go  on  from  lower  degrees  of  light  to  higher.  Heathenism 
may  be  defined  as  religion  that  has  made  a  good  start,  but  is 
arrested  in  its  free  development  and  progress  to  perfection, 
and  so  has  become  retrograda  Having  one  source  with  the 
leligion  of  the  elect  people,  it  does  not,  like  it,  flow  on  in 
ever-increasing  volume,  but  loses  itself  in  the  sand/ 

Thirdly,  the  election  being  designed  not  merely  to  bestow 
on  the  elect  people  the  great  boon  of  the  true  religion,  but 
to  qualify  it  for  communicating  that  blessing  to  the  world, 
we  should  expect  to  discover  in  universal  history  traces  of  a 
twofold  line  of  preparation — on  the  one  hand,  of  the  chosen 
people  for  giving  to  the  pagan  nations  the  benefit  of  the 
true  religion ;  on  the  other,  of  these  nations  for  receiving 
the  benefit.  The  double  process,  to  serve  its  purpose,  would 
need  to  be  a  very  comprehensive  one,  including  within  it8 
scope  not  merely  religion,  but  all  other  departments  of 
human  affairs — philosophy,  science,  art,  war,  commerce, 
politics.  The  larger  process  of  preparation  among  the 
Gentiles  is  quite  as  necessary  to  the  realisation  of  the 
divine  end  in  election  as  the  smaller  one  among  the  elect 

'  Ewald,  Revelation :  it«  Nature  and  Record,  pp.  208,  204.  This  work  ia 
a  translation  of  the  first  part  of  Ewald's  ^eat  work,  Die  Ltkre  der  Bibel  vom 
Oott.      Vide  liat  of  books  at  the  beginning  of  this  ohaptw. 


PROPHETIC   IDEA   OP   ISRAEL'S   VOCATION,    ETC.      207 

peopla  And  its  moral  import  ia  vast  and  varied.  It 
means  that  God  was  never  the  God  of  the  Jews  only.  It 
means  that  even  by  their  very  errors  and  failures  God  was 
bringing  the  Gentiles  by  a  roundabout  road  to  Christ.  It 
means  that  there  is  no  reason  to  take  a  despairing  view  of 
the  spiritual  state  or  future  prospects  of  pagans  on  account 
of  their  comparative  ignorance  of  the  true  God.  That 
ignorance,  as  missionaries  know,  is  often  deep  enough,  but, 
however  deep,  it  is  a  hasty  judgment  which  pronounces 
it  incompatible  with  salvation.  This  judgment  at  bottom 
rests  on  a  mistaken  view  of  the  nature,  purpose,  and  con- 
sequences of  election,  a  relative,  temporary,  and  economic 
preference  being  mistaken  for  an  absolute,  eternal,  and 
intrinsic  one.  The  elect  race  is  not  the  exclusive  sphere 
of  salvation.  The  elect  are  themselves  saviours.  To  save 
is  their  very  vocation.  And  the  God  of  the  elect  is  caring 
for  others  in  the  very  act  of  electing  them. 

Some  light  even  for  pagans ;  heathenism  nevertheless, 
on  the  whole,  a  failure  ;  its  very  failure  a  preparation  for 
receiving  the  true  religion — such  are  the  inferences  sug- 
gested by  the  method  of  election.  If  the  facts  verify  these 
d  priori  inferences,  the  election  will  be  at  once  shown  to  be 
a  reality,  and  cleared  of  all  liability  to  objection  on  the 
score  of  partiality. 

At  the  close  of  this  chapter  it  may  fitly  be  pointed  out 
how  clearly  the  whole  course  of  Israel's  history  shows  that 
the  supreme  care  of  Providence  was  for  the  interests  of  the 
true  religion,  and  not  merely  for  the  wellbeing  of  a  pet 
people.  If  the  supreme  divine  aim  in  calling  Israel  was 
to  found  a  national  theocratic  kingdom,  it  was  a  failure ; 
if  it  was  to  give  to  the  world  the  true  religion,  it  suc- 
ceeded. God  took  little  pains  to  preserve  the  unity  and 
peace  of  the  people  He  called  His  own.  He  suffered  it  to 
be  broken  up  into  two  rival  kingdoms.  He  permitted  the 
larger  kingdom  to  be  blotted  out  of  existence,  and  the 
smaller,  a  century  afterwards,  to  be  carried  captive  to 
Babylon,    to   return   after   a    season  to   its   own    land    no 


208  AFOLoasncs. 

longer  a  nation,  but  a  petty  charch.  The  ehnroh  in 
turn  resolved  itself  into  rival  sects,  presenting  a  ridiculous 
caricature  of  the  ideal  kingdom  of  priests  and  holy  nation. 
And  how  fared  it  with  the  true  religion  throughout  these 
sad  centuries  ?  Amid  national  disasters  the  light  of  pro- 
phecy shone.  The  post  -  exilian  Church  produced  the 
Psalter.*  And  when  at  length  the  Jewish  State  was  on 
the  brink  of  final  ruin,  He  appeared  who  was  to  be  the 
Light  of  the  world.  The  elect  nation  was  replaced  by  the 
Elect  Man. 


CHAPTEB  IV, 

MOSAISH. 

LiTBEATUKE.  —  Ewald,  Geschichte  des  Volkes  Israel,  Band 
IL  ;  Wellhausen,  History  of  Israel;  Stade,  Geschichte  de§ 
Volkes  Israel ;  Kuenen,  T/ie  Religion  of  Israel  (translation) ; 
Renan,  Histoire  du peuple  d^ Israel;  Schuitz,  Alttestamentliche 
Theologie ;  Riehm,  Alt.  Theol.;  Koenig,  Die  Haupt-ProUeme 
der  alt-Israelitischen  Geschichte  (translated  by  T.  &  T.  Clark)  ; 
Robertson,  The  Early  Religion  of  Israel;  Geerhardus  Vos, 
The  Mosaic  Origin  of  the  Pentateuchal  Codes,  with  an  Intro- 
duction by  Professor  W.  H.  Green  of  Princeton. 

It  was  to  be  expected  that  the  epoch  of  the  Exodus  should 
be  associated  with  a  new  departure  in  revelation.  Each 
of  the  three  great  stages  in  the  evolution  of  Israel's  religion 
was  connected  with  a  providential  crisis  in  Israel's  history ; 
Mosaism  with  the  escape  from  Egyptian  bondage,  Pro- 
phetism  with  the  rise  of  the  great  Eastern  monarchies, 
and  Judaism  with  the  Babyloiiisli  exile.  None  of  these 
crises  was  greater  than  the  first.  The  Exodus  brought  to 
a  close  a  sojourn  centuries  long  in  a  land  of  peculiar  cus- 

^  This  ifl  not  stated  dogmatically,  but  as  a  critical  hypothesis  which  an 
apologist  has  no  reason  to  fear.  On  the  apologetic  significance  of  the 
Psalter  viewed  as  of  post-exilic  origin,  vide  chap.  vii.  of  this  book- 


M0SAI8M.  209 

toms  and  most  peonliar  religion,  well  called  "  the  religion 
of  mystery  " ;  *  it  meant  deliverance  from  the  oppressive 
yoke  of  Egyptian  taskmasters  long  endured  by  the  so- 
journers, and  it  would  be  remembered  as  a  deliverance 
achieved  by  a  series  of  remarkable  events  culminating  in 
the  way  made  through  the  sea  that  the  bondslaves  might 
for  ever  escape  from  their  oppressors,  who  "  sank  as  lead 
in  the  mighty  waters,"  and  feel,  when  they  stood  on  the 
further  shore,  that  they  were  a  free  people.  No  combina- 
tion of  circumstances  can  be  conceived  more  fitted  to 
produce  an  intense  national  self-consciousness,  to  awaken 
new  religious  thought,  and  to  make  a  deep  and  indelible 
impression  on  character.  The  prophetic  genius  of  a  people 
that  has  had  such  an  experience  will  have  something  to 
say  of  God  and  duty  worth  hearing,  and  not  likely  to  be 
forgotten.  It  is  therefore  a  violation  of  all  historical 
probability  to  minimise  the  significance  of  Mosaism  in 
deference  to  a  naturalistic  theory  of  evolution,  which 
demands  that  the  early  stage  in  a  religious  development 
shall  be  sufiBciently  rudimentary  to  allow  the  whole  sub- 
sequent course  of  things  to  present  the  appearance  of 
steady  onward  progress. 

The  grand  outstanding,  imperishable  monument  of  Moses 
and  his  prophetic  work  is  the  Decalogue.  We  cannot, 
however,  proceed  to  estimate  the  significance  of  that  preg- 
nant summary  of  duty  without  reckoning  with  the  views 
of  some  modem  critics,  who  doubt  or  deny  the  Mosaic 
origin  of  the  Ten  Words,  while  admitting  that  they  reflect 
the  spirit  of  Mosaic  religion.  The  best  way  to  do  this  is 
to  show  the  intrinsic  credibility  of  the  Decalogue  as  a 
Mosaic  utterance :  how  naturally  it  fits  into  and  arises 
out  of  the  position  of  Israel  as  an  emancipated  people, 
more  especially  in  the  first  table,  which  embodies  the 
religious  idea  of  the  legislator.  The  key  to  the  situation 
is  to  be  lound  in  the  preface,  which,  whether  written  on 
stone  or  not,  was  certainly  written  on  the  hearts  of  the 
*  So  Hegel  in  his  EeligUyns-PMlosophie, 
0 


210  APOLoosnoa 

emancipated  people.      **  I  am  Jehovah  thy  God,  who  hav« 

brought  thee  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  out  of  the  house  of 
bondage."  These  words  not  only  set  forth  Jehovah's 
claim,  but  are  a  clue  to  the  idea  of  God  entertained  by 
the  people  of  Israel  or  its  representatives  at  the  period  of 
the  Exodus.  The  name  for  Israel's  God  is  Jehovah,  or 
more  correctly,  Jahveh.  It  is  in  all  probability  not  an 
absolutely  new  name,  but  an  old  tribal  name  revived  and 
pronounced  with  new  emphasis,  and  charged  with  deeper 
significance.  The  origin  and  import  of  the  name  are 
obscure,  and  therefore  no  inference,  certain  and  reliable, 
can  be  drawn  from  it  as  to  the  nature  of  the  Being  who 
bore  it.  A  surer  index  is  given  in  what  Jehovah  has  done 
for  Israel.  He  has  brought  her  out  of  a  land  which  has 
been  for  her  a  land  of  long-lasting,  intolerable  oppression. 
What  educative  virtue  lay  in  that  fact  looked  at  on  all  sides  ! 
Consider,  first,  the  natural  effect  of  a  state  of  bondage  in 
producing  a  deep  invincible  dislike  to  all  Egyptian  ways 
in  religion.  Nothing  less  probable  than  that  Israel  will 
carry  away  from  the  land  of  bondage  the  religious  customs 
and  ideas  of  her  oppressors;  rather  may  it  be  expected 
that  she  will  studiously  avoid  them  in  all  directions.  It 
may  be  assumed  that,  though  living  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
land  in  which  they  are  strangers,  the  Beni- Israel  had 
opportunities  of  becoming  acquainted  with  local  customs. 
Moses,  at  least,  there  is  reason  to  believe,  knew  these 
intimately.  And  he  knew  only  to  abhor  and  shun ; 
whence  flow  several  important  inferences.  Thus:  Egypt 
was  a  land  of  many  gods.  It  may  therefore  be  expected 
that  redeemed  Israel  will  eschew  polytheism,  and  that  a 
fundamental  article  of  her  religious  creed  will  be :  Besides 
Jehovah  there  is  no  God — a  real  practical  monotheism,  if 
not  a  theoretical  and  speculative.  This  gives  us  the  first 
commandment  in  the  Decalogue :  "  Thou  shalt  have  no 
other  gods  before  me,"  to  be  understood  as  enjoining  not 
merely  the  worship  of  only  one  national  God,  but  con- 
tempt of  other  goda     Again,  Egypt  wafj  a  land  of  images : 


MOSAISM.  211 

statues  of  the  gods  were  to  be  seen  everywhere ;  not  with- 
out artistic  merit,  noble  in  outline,  though  lacking  indi- 
viduality. How  natural  that  the  children  of  the  Exodus 
should  be  proof  against  the  fascinations  of  these  divinities 
in  stone,  and  that  it  should  become  an  article  in  their 
creed  that  God  is  not  to  be  worshipped  by  images.  True, 
they  are  represented  as  worshipping  a  golden  calf  at  the 
very  foot  of  Sinai,  which  seems  to  show  that  their  anti- 
Egyptian  prejudices  were  not  so  strong  as  might  have 
been  expected.  But  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  indigna- 
tion of  Moses  at  the  sight  was  intensified  by  the  thought 
that  the  act  of  idolatry  was  a  relapse  into  the  heathenish 
ways  of  Israel's  oppressors.  From  him,  true  patriot  as  he 
was,  a  prohibition  against  image- worship,  such  as  we  find 
in  the  second  commandment,  was  to  be  looked  for.  Once 
more  in  the  land  of  bondage  there  was  in  all  probability 
no  resting-day  for  the  poor,  overtasked  slaves.  All  days  of 
the  week,  if  the  week  was  known,  were  alike,  a  monotonous, 
unbroken  continuity  of  toil.  How  welcome  then  to  the 
ear  of  the  emancipated  the  injunction  of  the  Hebrew 
legislator,  "  Eemember  the  Sabbath  day  to  keep  it  holy," 
whether  we  take  it  as  creating  a  new  institution,  or  as 
reviving  an  old  Hebrew  custom  compulsorily  neglected  in 
the  time  of  enslavement 

The  Mosaicity  of  the  first  table  of  the  Decalogue  thus 
appears  to  be  intrinsically  credible  in  the  light  of  Israel's 
past  experience.  The  doubts  of  critics  have  been  especially 
directed  against  the  second  commandment,  whose  Mosaic 
origin  seems  to  them  incompatible  with  the  alleged  pre- 
valence in  after  centuries  of  the  use  of  images,  even  in 
connection  with  the  worship  of  Jehovah.  The  calves  of 
Jeroboam  are  pointed  to  in  proof;  for  what,  it  is  asked, 
was  the  religion  established  by  the  first  king  of  the  ten 
tribes  but  the  worship  of  Jehovah  under  the  image  of  an 
ox  ?  And  that  this  worship  was  not  an  innovation  con- 
trary to  previous  custom,  is  argued  from  the  manifest 
impolicy  of  outraging  popular  feeling,  and  from  the  absence 


212  APOLOGETICS. 

from  the  reccrds  of  any  indications  that  the  prophet  Elijah 
disapproved  of  the  State-worship  established  at  Dan  and 
Bethel.  The  first  note  of  condemnation  of  the  association 
of  Jehovah-worship  with  the  image  of  an  ox  was  uttered, 
we  are  told,  by  the  prophets  of  the  eighth  century,  and  in 
their  case  the  prohibition  is  connected  with  new  views  as 
to  the  nature  of  God,  It  denotes,  in  short,  the  transition 
from  a  physical  to  an  ethical  conception  of  deity.  The  ox 
of  the  old  sanctuari  was  doomed  by  the  men  who  gave 
to  the  world  ethical  monotheism ;  till  then  it  had  been  a 
legitimate  feature  of  Jehovah -worship.  Two  questions 
arise  here :  What  are  the  facts,  and  how  are  they  to  be 
construed  ?  Assuming  the  facts  to  be  as  stated  by  the 
critics, — that  at  the  various  sanctuaries  of  Israel,  from  time 
immemorial,  the  ox  had  been  associated  with  Jehovah- 
worship  ;  that  Jeroboam,  in  setting  up  the  calves  at  Dan 
and  Bethel,  was  not  introducing  new  gods,  but  only  estab- 
lishing an  old  worship  in  new  places ;  and  that  men  of 
God  like  Elijah  had  no  fault  to  find  with  him, — it  becomes 
certainly  less  easy  to  believe  in  the  Mosaic  origin  of  the 
second  commandment.  One  is  tempted  to  think  of  it  as  a 
later  insertion  into  an  earlier  form  of  the  Decalogue  in 
which  it  was  wanting.  But  this  serves  no  purpose,  unless 
we  get  rid  of  other  features  of  the  Decalogue  which  show 
that  the  Jehovah  of  the  Ten  Words  is  no  physical  deity 
like  the  gods  of  Egypt,  but  an  ethical  being  like  the 
Jehovah  believed  in  by  the  prophets  of  the  eighth  century. 
To  prove  this,  we  have  only  to  consider  more  fully  what 
is  implied  in  the  preface.  I  am  Jehovah,  who  have  brought 
thee  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt.  Consider  the  subject  of 
redemption,  and  the  means  by  which  redemption  is  achieved. 
"  Thee,"  Israel,  a  poor  oppressed  race,  what  a  glimpse  this 
affords  into  the  nature  of  Jehovah !  He  is  the  Friend  of 
the  weak  against  the  strong,  of  the  oppressed  against  the 
oppressor ;  He  loves  justice,  hates  wrong,  and  has  pity  on 
its  helpless  victims.  Many  centuries  later,  a  Psalmist, 
thinking  of  God's  acts  unto  the  children  of  Israel,  sang  of 


MOSAISM.  218 

Him  as  One  who  "eXBCuteth  righteousness  and  judgment 
for  all  that  are  opprsssed."  ^  That  this  was  Jehovah's 
character  would  be  as  clear  to  Moses  as  it  was  to  the 
Psalmist,  and  it  is  quite  credible  that  it  is  to  him  we  owe 
the  description  of  Jehovah  as  "  merciful  and  gracious, 
longsuffering,  and  abundant  in  goodness  and  truth."* 

And  by  what  means  does  Jehovah  deliver  His  oppressed 
people  ?  The  object  of  His  love  is  no  mighty  nation  with 
powerful  armies  at  its  command.  If  He  be  merely  a 
national  God,  He  is  as  weak  as  the  people  He  befriends. 
But  He  has  other  forces  than  armed  men,  horses,  and 
chariots  at  His  disposal  Seas,  winds,  hailstorms  obey 
Him ;  pestilential  disease  is  at  His  service ;  all  living 
creatures,  even  frogs,  flies,  lice,  co-operate  to  accomplish 
His  will.  So  it  appears  from  the  records ;  so  His  ransomed 
people  believe,  and,  believing  this,  what  can  they  think 
but  that  Jehovah,  their  Redeemer,  is  not  merely  their 
tribal  God,  but  God  over  all  ?  Put  these  two  things 
together, — Jehovah  the  just  and  merciful,  and  Jehovah  the 
Lord  of  the  world, — and  what  have  we  but  ethical  mono- 
theism ? 

We  get  the  same  result  when  we  turn  from  the  preface 
of  the  Decalogue  to  the  Decalogue  itself,  and  regard  it  as 
a  whole.  What  at  once  arrests  attention  is  the  universal 
character  of  the  code  of  morals  it  contains.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  sum  of  duty  local  or  national ;  all  is  human 
and  valid  for  all  mankind.  That  fact  with  reference  to 
the  contents  of  the  second  table,  implies  that  ethical 
monotheism  underlies  the  first.  This  inference  is  allowed  by 
critics,  and  used  as  an  argument  against  the  Mosaic  origin  of 
the  Decalogue.  Thus  among  the  reasons  advanced  by  Well- 
hausen  against  its  authenticity  are  these :  "  The  essentially 
and  necessarily  national  character  of  the  older  phases  of 
the  religion  of  Jehovah  completely  disappears  in  the  quite 
universal  code  of  morals  which  is  given  in  the  Decalogue 
as  the  fundamental  law  of  Israel ;  but  the  entire  series  of 
^  Ps.  ciiL  8.  *  Ex.  xzziy.  6. 


214  APOLOGETICS. 

religious  personalities  throughout  the  period  of  the  Judges  and 
the  Kings — from  Deborah,  who  praised  Jael's  treacherous 
act  of  murder,  to  David,  who  treated  his  prisoners  of  war 
with  the  utmost  cruelty — make  it  very  difficult  to  believe 
that  the  religion  of  Israel  was,  from  the  outset,  one  of  a 
specifically  moral  character.  The  true  spirit  of  the  old 
religion  may  be  gathered  much  more  truly  from  Judg.  v. 
than  from  Ex.  xx."  Then  again :  "  It  is  extremely  doubt- 
ful whether  the  actual  monotheism,  which  is  undoubtedly 
presupposed  in  the  universal  moral  precepts  of  the 
Decalogue,  could  have  formed  the  foundation  of  a  national 
religion."  *  The  most  valuable  feature  in  these  extracts  is 
the  admission  they  contain  that  the  morality  of  the 
Pentateuch  is  universal,  and  that  the  universal  morality 
implies  monotheistic  religion.  The  reasoning  against  the 
authenticity  of  the  Ten  Words  is  not  very  formidable. 
We  are  asked  to  doubt  the  lofty  morality  of  Moses  on 
account  of  the  low  morality  of  later  personalities.  The 
assumption  is,  that  the  moral  growth  of  a  nation  must  show 
a  steady  advance ;  there  must  be  no  lapsing  from  a  higher 
level,  no  tide-like  movement ;  the  earlier  stage  must  always 
be  the  ruder.  As  if  the  moral  ideal  of  Christ  did  not 
tower  above  the  actual  morality  of  Christendom,  as  an 
Alpine  range  of  mountains  rises  above  the  plains !  Then 
we  are  told  that  a  monotheism  as  old  as  Moses  could  not 
form  the  foundation  of  a  national  religion.  Why  not,  if 
the  national  religion  happened  to  have  for  its  peculiarity 
among  the  religions  of  the  world,  monotheism,  the  belief 
that  there  is  only  one  true  God  ? 

We  may  rest,  then,  in  the  conclusion  that  the  Decalogue 
is  the  work  of  Moses.  It  is  impossible  to  assign  for  its 
composition  a  more  worthy  time  and  author.  The  attempts 
to  find  for  it  a  suitable  place  in  later  ages  are  not  satis- 
factory. One  suggests  the  reign  of  Manasseh,  when 
Micah  gave  his  memorable  answer  to  the  question,  What 
doth  God  require  of  man — an  answer  so  like  the  Decalogue, 
>  History  qf  Imrad,  pp.  489,  440. 


MOSAISM.  216 

in  its  eloquent  silence  as  to  cultus,  that  one  might  be 
tempted  to  conjecture  that  to  Micah  rather  than  to  Moses 
the  world  owes  the  Ten  Words.*  But  if  the  later  prophet 
had  done  anything  so  great,  there  would  surely  have  been 
a  record  of  the  fact  in  the  book  of  his  prophecies.  Another 
suggestion  is  that  the  Decalogue  originated  at  a  time  when 
prophetic  protests  first  began  to  be  raised  against  the 
traditional  use  of  images  in  the  worship  of  Jehovah.*  One 
can  imagine  the  addition  at  such  a  crisis  to  an  already 
existing  compendium  of  duty,  of  a  new  commandment 
directed  against  the  use  of  images ;  but  it  is  hardly  likely 
that  the  first  sketch  of  the  code  would  have  so  late  an 
origin.  As  little  can  we  believe  that  so  important  a 
phenomenon  would  make  its  appearance  in  the  world  with 
so  little  noise.  There  was  a  finding  of  the  book  when  the 
Deuteronomic  code  came  into  existence.  The  services  of 
Ezra  the  scribe,  in  reducing  to  written  form  "  the  law  of 
Moses,"  are  duly  chronicled.  And  the  grandest  part  of 
that  law,  the  very  essence  and  kernel  of  Israel's  religion, 
steals  into  existence  without  a  father  and  without  a 
date! 

The  original  form  of  the  Decalogue  can  only  be  con- 
jectured. The  two  versions  of  it  given  in  Ex.  xx.  and 
Deut.  V.  vary  in  several  particulars,  and  the  probaliility  is 
that  both  are  expansions  of  a  more  primitive  version  written 
in  the  lapidary  style  suitable  to  inscriptions  on  stone. 
Ewald  reproduces  the  original  thus : — 

I  am  Jehovah  thy  God,  who  brought  thee  ont  of  the  land 
of  Egypt,  out  of  the  house  of  bondage. 

*  Wellhausen,  History  of  Israel,  p.  486.  "  Perhaps  to  this  period  the 
Decalogue  also,  which  is  bo  eloquently  silent  in  regard  to  cnltus,  la  to  be 
assigned,"  The  period  is  that  to  which  Micah  ri.  1-vii.  6  belongs,  which 
Wellhausen  assigns  to  Manasseh's  time.  He  does  not  suggest  that  the 
author  of  this  passage  composed  the  Decalogue,  but  one  reading  this  passage 
natorally  asks,  Might  not  the  prophetic  oracle  and  the  Dacalogae  proceed 
from  the  same  hand  t 

'  Sehnlti,  AlUestamflntUcke  Theologit,  p.  199. 


216  APOLOGETICS. 

L 

1.  Thou  shalt  have  no  other  god  before  me. 

2.  Thou  shalt  not  make  uuto  thee  any  image  (Steinbild). 
8.  Thou  shalt  not  take  the  name  of  Jehovah  thy  God  in 

vain. 
4.  Thou  shalt  remember  the  Sabbath  day  to  sanctify  it 
6.  Thou  shalt  honour  thy  father  and  thy  mother. 

EL 

1.  Thou  shalt  not  Tnll. 

2.  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery. 

3.  Thou  shalt  not  steaL 

4.  Thou  shalt  bear  no  false  witness  against  thy  neighbour. 

5.  Thou  shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbour's  house.* 

In  what  characters  was  the  Decalogue  written?  The 
Hebrew  alphabet,  as  we  know  it,  was  not  then  in  existence, 
but  that  did  not  make  writing  for  Hebrews  impossible. 
Moses  was  doubtless  acquainted  with  the  hieroglyphic 
symbols  of  Egypt,  one  of  the  most  characteristic  features 
of  the  religion  of  mystery.  There  was  also  at  his  command 
rhe  cuneiform  syllabary  of  Babylon,  which  recent  dis- 
coveries at  Tel-el- Amarna  show  to  have  been  in  common 
use  at  the  period.*  It  is  even  possible  that  he  employed 
an  alphabet  current  in  the  Minsean  kingdom  long  anterior 
to  the  discovery  of  the  Phoenician  alphabet,  and  supposed 
by  some  scholars  to  be  the  source  of  the  latter.* 

The  foregoing  discussion  of  the  authenticity  of  the 
Decalogue  has  anticipated  much  of  what  might  be  said  in 

^Ewald,  Oeschichte  de»  Voliea  Israel^  Band  IL  pw  281.  Yatke  In  hit 
Binleitung,  1886,  gives  a  scheme  which  varies  from  Ewald'a  in  two  par* 
ticulara.  He  tarns  the  preface  into  a  commandnient=  I  am  Jehovah  thy 
God,  and  omits  the  command  against  images.     Vide  p.  838. 

'  Olay  tablets  have  been  found  there  with  inscriptions  in  crmeiform 
characters  of  date  1500  B.O.,  probably  earlier  than  the  Exodns.  From  these 
inscriptions  it  is  inferred  that  at  that  period  there  was  free  literary  intw 
course  between  Egypt,  Palestine,  and  Babylon,  in  the  Babylonian  langnage 
and  syllabary. 

*  Tlie  Minsean  empire  is  one  of  the  most  recent  discoveries  of  Oriental 
•rehsBology.  It  oecapied  the  Arabian  peninsula  at  a  very  ancient  datOr 
Anhteologists  describe  the  Min^jans  as  a  literary  peofJ*  '^'Hh  an  alphabetic 


MOSAISM.  217 

a  positive  statement  concerning  its  import.  It  proclaims, 
we  have  seen,  a  spiritual  God,  who  loves  justice  and  mercy 
and  rules  over  all,  and  it  teaches  a  pure  universal  morality 
implying  a  monotheistic  religious  basis.  But  there  are  ono 
or  two  other  features  which  must  be  pointed  out  in  order 
to  make  our  estimate  of  its  significance  complete. 

Foiemost  among  these  is  the  exclusion  from  the  funda- 
mental law  of  Israel — basis  of  the  covenant  between  her 
and  God — of  everything  of  a  merely  ritual  character,  such 
as  circumcision.  In  this  respect  there  is  a  striking  contrast 
between  the  religion  of  Israel  as  formulated  by  Moses,  and 
the  religion  of  Egypt  as  reflected  in  the  ritual  of  the  dead. 
In  the  trial  of  the  soul  after  death  therein  described  there 
is  a  grotesque  mixture  of  merely  ritual  with  moral  ofiFences. 
The  tried  one  protests  that  he  has  not  been  guilty  of 
uncleanness,  perjury,  injustice,  inhumanity ;  and  also  that 
he  has  not  neglected  religious  ceremonies,  extinguished  the 
perpetual  lamp,  driven  off  the  sacred  cattle,  netted  sacred 
birds,  or  robbed  the  gods  of  their  offered  haunches.*  The 
fancied  protest  of  the  dead  reveals  the  thoughts  of  the 
living,  and  shows  that  the  ancient  Egyptians  failed  to 
realise  the  vast  gulf  which  divides  moral  duties  from 
technical  breaches  of  religious  ceremonial  The  Decalogue 
is  a  proof  that  Israel,  or  at  least  Moses,  had  mastered 
the  grand  distinction.  Renan  has  remarked  that  the 
Decalogue  is  very  analogous  to  the  negative  confession  of 
the  dead  in  the  Egyptian  religioa*  What  ought  to  strike 
one  is  not  the  resemblance,  but  the  contrast.  It  is  one  of 
the  points  at  which  we  are  forced  to  recognise  the  wide 
difference  between  the  religion  of  nature  and  the  religion 
of  revelation.     That  God  had  not  left  Himself  without  a 

system  of  writing  whence  the  Phoenician  was  derived.  If  this  be  verified, 
we  shall  have  to  regard  Arabia  as  the  primitive  home  of  our  modem 
alphabets.  Vide  artide  by  Professor  Sayce  in  Contemporary  Review, 
1st  December  1889. 

>  The  Funereal  BUual,  translated  by  Dr.  Birch,  voL  ▼.  of  BnnsNi's 
Egjfpt'a  Place  in  Universal  History,  pp.  262,  268. 

*  matoir*  dm  Peuple  d Israel,  p.  122,  vol.  L  of  th«  Eii(^  traMktioa. 


218  APOLOGETICS. 

witness  in  the  Egyptian  conscience,  the  trial  of  the  dead 
clearly  shows.  But  that  the  light  within  was  not  unmixed 
with  darkness,  the  confusion  of  the  moral  and  the  ritual 
in  the  same  scene  not  less  clearly  evinces.  In  the 
Decalogue  the  supremacy  of  the  moral  shines  with  the 
brightness  of  the  day.  The  fact  of  the  contrast  is  patent, 
explain  it  as  we  may.* 

The  purely  ethical  character  of  the  Decalogue  has  an 
important  bearing  on  the  question  as  to  the  relation  of 
Moses  to  the  ritual  legislation  recorded  in  the  Pentateuch. 
In  the  previous  paragraph  we  were  concerned  with  a  con- 
trast between  the  religion  of  Israel  and  that  of  Egypt. 
What  now  invites  our  attention  is  a  contrast  between  two 
different  phases  of  the  same  religion:  Mosaism  and 
Judaism.  In  whatever  relation  Moses  stood  to  the 
Levitical  law,  it  is  evident,  the  Decalogue  being  witness, 
that  in  his  view  it  was  of  quite  secondary  importance. 
The  motto  of  Mosaism  was,  to  obey — moral  fidelity — is 
better  than  sacrifice.  With  Judaism,  what  we  may  call 
neo-Mosaism,  it  was  otherwise.  The  secondary  with  it 
became  primary — or  at  least  co-ordinate.  The  ritual  took 
its  place  beside  the  moral.  Not,  indeed,  that  it  became  an 
end  in  itselt  The  leading  aim  of  Ezra  was  the  same  as 
that  of  Moses,  to  make  Israel  faithful  to  her  God.  Eitual 
was  intended  to  be  a  hedge  to  the  true  religion,  to  the 
worship  of  Jehovah,  protecting  it  against  the  reinvasion  of 
pagan  idolatries.     But  the  prominence  given  to  it  with  this 

^  Critics  discover  in  Ex.  xzziy.  14-26  another  Deoalogae,  also  the  basis 

of  a  covenant,  and  try  to  reconstmct  it  in  its  original  form.  Thns  Stade 
{Oeschichte  de»  Volkes  Israel,  p.  610)  oflfers  the  following  table : — 1.  Thou 
shalt  worship  no  other  god ;  2.  Thou  shalt  make  no  molten  image  ;  8.  Thou 
shalt  keep  the  feast  of  unleavened  bread  ;  4.  All  the  first-bom  are  mine  ; 
6.  Thou  shalt  keep  the  Sabbath  ;  6.  Thou  shalt  keep  the  feast  of  Weeks  and 
Ingathering ;  7.  Thou  shalt  not  oflFer  the  blood  of  sacrifice  with  leavened 
bread  ;  8.  Of  the  Passover  offering  shall  nothing  remain  till  the  morning  ; 
9.  Bring  firstlings  of  ftnit  to  the  house  of  Jehovah  ;  10.  Seethe  not  a  kid 
in  the  milk  of  his  mother.  A  curious  mixture  \  Vide  Driver's  Introduction, 
p.  37,  where  Wellhausen's  reconstruction  is  given.  Th*  section  containing 
this  "  Decalogue  "  belongs  to  the  Jehovistic  docomena 


MOSAISM.  219 

view  involved  the  risk  of  its  becoming  more  important 
than  the  thing  it  guarded — a  risk  which  the  subsequent 
career  of  scribism  shows  to  have  been  far  from  imaginary. 

In  assigning  the  sovereign  place  to  the  ethical,  Moses 
showed  himself  to  be  well  entitled  to  the  designation  of 
prophet  conferred  upon  him  by  Hosea.*  He  was  in  spirit 
the  forerunner  of  the  prophets  of  the  eighth  century  B.C., 
whose  watchword  was,  not  ritual,  but  righteousness.  In 
this  sense  we  may  understand  the  statement  of  Jeremiah  : 
"  I  spake  not  unto  your  fathers,  nor  commanded  them  in 
the  day  that  I  brought  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt, 
concerning  burnt  offerings  or  sacrifices:  but  this  thing 
commanded  I  them,  saying.  Obey  my  voice,  and  I  will  be 
your  God,  and  ye  shall  be  my  people."*  Some  take  this 
to  mean  that  the  whole  Levitical  law  was  post-Mosaic, 
that  no  such  directions  regarding  sacrifices  and  kindred 
topics  as  are  recorded  in  the  middle  books  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch emanated  from  Moses.  This  may  be  too  wide  an 
inference,  and  possibly  the  prophet's  assertion  may  be  only 
a  strong  way  of  saying  that  ritual  had  a  very  subordinate 
place  in  the  Mosaic  legislation,  that  the  thing  insisted  on 
was  Obedience,  in  the  sense  of  heart  loyalty  to  Jehovah 
and  fidelity  in  all  relative  duties — in  other  words,  compliance 
with  the  behests  of  the  Decalogue.  So  much,  however,  it 
must  mean  if  it  is  not  to  be  robbed  of  all  point  and  force. 
Whether,  even  when  so  modified,  the  statement  of  Jeremiah 
be  compatible  with  Moses  having  anything  like  as  much 
to  do  with  the  ritualistic  Torah  as  is  implied  in  the 
Pentateuchal  narrative,  is  a  question  not  to  be  lightly  put 
aside.  It  does  seem  as  if,  in  order  to  make  the  great 
truth.  Obedience  before  sacrifice,  valid,  to  impress  upon  a 
rude  people  a  lesson  which  even  highly  civilised  peoples 
are  slow  to  learn, — that  morality  is  of  more  worth  than 

*  Hob.  xiL  18:  "By  s  prophet  Jehovah  brought  Israel  oat  of  Egypt." 
Hoses  is  not  named,  but  just  on  that  account  the  designation  of  him  as  a 
prophet  gains  in  emphasis. 

*  Jer.  Tii.  22,  23. 


220  APOLOQBTIC& 

formal    compliance    with    religious    rules, — ^it    would    be 

necessary  for  a  man  occupying  the  position  of  Moses  to 
keep  himself  aloof  from  matters  of  ritual  as  if  they  were 
not  in  his  line,  to  be  almost  ostentatiously  careless  about 
them,  to  leave  them  to  be  attended  to  by  other  and  smaller 
men,  priests  by  profession.  One  can  conceive  how  it 
might  not  be  very  difficult  to  pursue  such  a  policy. 
Priestly  ritual,  at  whatever  period  reduced  to  writing,  was 
doubtless  in  the  main  of  great  antiquity.  Probably  the 
rules  of  worship  were  to  a  large  extent  old  customs  going 
back  into  the  dim  centuries  before  Moses.*  In  that  case 
there  would  be  no  need  for  new  legislation.  It  would  be 
enough  to  let  well  alone,  to  endorse  or  countenance  exist- 
ing usage. 

This  we  can  conceive  Moses  doing  either  cumulatively 
or  in  detail,  without  prejudice  to  his  grand  function  of 
prophetic  legislator  within  the  sphere  of  moral  law.  We 
can  view  the  principles  common  to  the  various  law-books, 
as  having  the  stamp  of  Mosaic  sanction,  without  assigning 
to  them  a  place  in  the  proper  work  of  Moses,  or  raising 
them  to  the  dignity  of  being  an  integral  part  of  Mosaism. 
We  may  even  go  the  length  of  discovering  in  the  Decalogue 
itself  a  tacit  recognition  of  ritual.  If  anywhere,  that  must 
be  found  in  the  Fourth  Commandment,  "  Remember  the 
Sabbath  day."  Without  doubt,  the  first  thing  in  the  legis- 
lator's intention,  in  connection  with  the  hallowing  of  that 
day,  is  rest.  That  appears  plainly  in  both  the  versions  of 
the  Decalogue.  God  would  have  Israelites  rest  from  toil 
on  the  seventh  day,  and  above  all  see  to  it  that  all  depend- 
ent on  them  had  full  enjoyment  of  their  rest,  reminding 
them  of  the  time  of  Egyptian  bondage  when  no  resting- 
day  came  round,  that  they  miglit  be  more  considerately 
humane.     It  is  this  kindly  provision  for  the  need  of  the 

*  Schultz,  Alttestamentliche  TJieologie,  p.  461,  says :  *'  We  will  not  err  if 
we  hold  the  material  out  of  which  the  fabric  of  the  ceremonial  law  ia 
formed — most  of  the  individual  customs  and  usages — a«  o(  great  antiquity, 
uuch  older  than  the  Old  Testament  religion." 


liOSAISM.  221 

labouring  million  that  raises  the  Fourth  Commandment  to 
the  dignity  of  a  moral  law.  But  while  rest  is  the  thing 
chiefly  in  view,  worship  need  not  be  thought  of  as  out  of 
sight.  For  right-minded  Israelites  resting-days  will  be 
worshipping-days,  when  they  will  appear  before  the  Lord 
with  thankful  hearts,  rejoicing  in  His  goodness  and  giving 
expression  to  their  gladness  by  such  acts  as  custom  pre- 
scribes. And  the  "Eemember"  with  which  the  Sabbath 
law  begins,  may  be  conceived  of  as  covering  the  whole 
sphere  of  worship  with  all  its  relative  usages.  In  that 
case  it  would  follow  that  Moses  recognised  the  indispens- 
ableness  of  worship  institutions  for  the  wellbeing  of  the 
state ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  slight  reserved  manner 
in  which  the  recognition  is  made  is  significant  as  to  the 
subordinate  relation  in  which  Mosaism  places  acts  of  wor- 
ship to  the  discharge  of  moral  duty.* 

From  the  foregoing  observations  it  will  appear  that  the 
question  as  to  the  relation  of  Moses  to  ritual  is  not  one 
which  concerns  the  existence  of  ritual  in  the  time  of  Moses, 
but  only  the  place  to  be  assigned  to  it  in  the  Mosaic 
system.  So  viewed,  it  may  be  discussed  with  calmness. 
The  hypothesis  that  the  Deuteronomic  and  priestly  codes 
are  post-Mosaic,  does  not  necessarily  mean  that  their  true 
authors  invented  their  contents  and  imputed  them  to  Moses. 
It  only  means  that  religious  customs,  mostly  ancient,  though 
in  some  particulars  new,  were  then  reduced  to  written  form 
and  ascribed  to  Moses  not  so  much  as  author,  but  rather 
as  authority.*  But  the  question,  though  thus  restricted  in 
scope,  is  one  of  great  importance  for  the  right  understand- 
ing of  the  place  of  Moses  in  the  history  of  Israel's  religion. 
We  must  on  no  account  conceive  of  that  great  man  as  a 

*  Riehm,  AUtestametUliehe  Tlieologie,  p.  74. 

'  Riehm,  AlUeitamentiiche  Theologie,  p.  81,  says:  "TTie  Mosaic  tradi- 
tions in  reference  to  oultus  were  preserved  by  the  priesta  at  Shiloh.  Written 
codes  prepared  by  the  priests  helped  to  inake  these  traditions  prevail. 
These  codes  they  ascribed  to  Moses,  but  only  their  spirit  and  main  featorei 
are  Mosaic ;  special  featores  were  added  by  the  priests,  partly  in  their  own 
faitersst,  and  many  of  tbem  remained  mere  postolatea." 


222  APOLOGETICS. 

person  of  priestly  spirit,  or  even  as  belonging  to  the  genua 
scribe,  whereof  Ezra  is  the  most  respectable  representative. 
We  must  ever  think  of  him  as  in  vocation  and  spirit  the 
Pnyphd.  And  to  vindicate  for  him  that  character  we  must 
strenuously  insist  that  the  Decalogue,  not  the  ritual  law,  is 
his  characteristic  contribution/  Moses  did  for  his  country- 
men two  things  of  quite  incomparable  value.  First,  he 
pointed  the  lesson  of  the  Exodus,  and  all  that  led  up  to 
it,  concerning  God.  It  is  not  affirmed  that  he  introduced 
a  theoretically  new  idea  of  God,  but  only  that  prophet-like 
he  improved  the  occasion,  and  took  out  of  the  events  all  the 
instruction  they  were  fitted  to  convey  concerning  the  nature 
and  character  of  God.  God's  self-revelation  recorded  in 
Scripture  is  not  doctrinaire,  consisting  in  abstract  theo- 
logical propositions.  God  revealed  Himself  in  the  Egyptian 
drama  of  Israel's  history,  and  Moses  understood  the  true 
import  of  what  had  happened,  and  conveyed  it  to  his 
people.  Next,  he  taught  his  people  the  supreme  value  of 
the  great  fundamental  laws  of  conduct.  He  did  not  dis- 
cover these  laws,  he  did  not  need  to  discover  them,  or  to 
have  them  for  the  first  time  revealed  to  him  on  Sinai: 
they  were  written  on  the  hearts  of  all  men,  Egyptian  and 
Israelite  alike.  What  he  learnt  for  himself  and  taught 
Israel,  was  the  sovereign  importance  of  these  laws.  By 
writing  them  on  stone  tablets  by  themselves  he  said :  th^se 

>  Vatke  {Dvt  Religion  dt$  A.  T.,  p.  218)  argues  against  the  Mosaic 
origin  of  the  cultus  on  the  ground  that  the  stiff  mechanism  of  form  is  never 
the  immediate,  that  is,  cannot  belong  to  the  first  stage  of  a  religious  develop- 
ment. This  is  a  philosophic  reason  which  may  have  its  truth.  But  the 
ground  on  which  I  lay  stress  is  the  ethical  or  prophetic  character  of  the 
work  of  Moses.  Just  because  I  agree  with  those  who  (like  Professor  Robert- 
son in  his  Baird  Lectures)  argue  against  the  naturalistic  school  for  the  ethical 
character  of  the  Mosaic  idea  of  God,  I  find  it  difficult  to  believe  that  Mosea 
was  the  author  of  the  elaborate  system  of  ritual  in  the  middle  books  of  the 
Pentateuch.  Modem  criticism  helps  us  here  by  enabling  us  to  form  • 
thoroughly  consistent  conception  of  the  character  of  Moses  as  a  prophet,  and 
to  assign  to  his  work  as  an  originator  a  simplicity  analogous  to  the  simplicity 
of  Christ.  Professor  Robertson's  reasoning  from  the  ethicalina  of  the  pro- 
phets to  the  ethiculism  of  Moses  seems  to  me  concluidTe.  When  he  appUef 
his  argument  to  ritual  T  cannot  follow  him. 


MOSAISM.  225 

are  the  tLings  bj  which  nations  live  and  die.  Do  these 
and  it  shall  go  well  with  thee,  neglect  them  and  thou  shalt 
perish.  Through  these  two  supreme  services:  the  lesson 
on  God  embodied  in  the  first  table  of  the  Decalogue,  and 
the  lesson  on  duty  embodied  in  the  second,  Moses  laid  the 
foundations  of  Israel's  national  life  deep  and  strong.  In 
proportion  as  Israel  shared  the  convictions  of  her  great 
hero,  she  had  the  consciousness  of  being  a  nation ;  in 
proportion  as  she  remained  faithful  to  hira  would  her 
national  existence  be  prolonged  and  her  prosperity  be 
promoted.* 

Enough  has  been  said  to  place  before  the  eye  in  general 
outline  the  nature  and  value  of  Mosaism.  For  this  purpose 
use  has  been  made  of  two  contrasts:  one  between  the 
Decalogue  and  the  Egyptian  ritual  of  the  dead,  and  another 
between  Moses  and  Ezra  in  relation  to  Leviticalism.  To 
make  the  picture  complete,  it  may  be  well  to  advert  briefly 
to  a  third  contrast,  that  between  the  Jehovah  of  the  Deca- 
logue and  the  Baal  of  pagan  Semitic  religions.  Jehovah 
has  no  other  gods  beside  Him  or  before  His  face,  neither 
male  deities  nor  female.  The  Baal  divinities  of  pagan 
Semitic  peoples,  Babylonians,  Phoenicians,  Canaanites,  have 
all  their  female  companions.  Sexuality  is  a  radical  char- 
acteristic of  deity  as  conceived  by  these  peoples.  That 
means  sensuality  introduced  into  religion,  sexual  prostitu- 
tion erected  into  an  act  of  worship,  whereby  Semitic 
paganism  becomes  stamped  with  an  exceptional  vileness. 
What   a   contrast   is   here   in  the  idea  of  God,  and   v/hat 

^  After  quoting  Enenen's  view  that  the  great  merit  of  Moses  was  that  he 
placed  the  service  of  Jehovah  on  a  moral  footing,  Canon  Cheyne,  in  a  review  of 
Canon  Driver's  "Introduction"  in  the  Expositor  of  February  1892,  remarks  : 
"This  surely  ought  to  satisfy  the  needs  of  essential  orthodoxy.  For  what 
conservatives  want,  or  ought  to  want,  is  not  so  much  to  prove  the  vcrat  ity 
of  Israelitish  priests,  when  they  ascribed  certain  ordinances  to  Moses,  as  to 
show  that  Moses  had  high  intuitions  of  God  and  of  morality.  In  a  word, 
they  want,  or  they  ought  to  want,  to  contradict  the  view  that  the  religion  of 
Israel,  at  any  rate  between  Moses  and  Amos,  in  no  easential  respect  differed 
from  that  of  Moab,  Ammon,  and  Rdom,  Israel's  nearest  kinsfolk  and 
neighbours." 


224  APOLOOETIGB. 

diverse  frnit  it  most  bear  in  social  life,  on  one  side  serere 

purity,  on  the  other  revolting,  unmentionable  vice  !  Whence 
this  vast  difference  between  Israel  and  peoples  to  which  she 
is  close  of  kin  in  blood  and  language  ?  It  is  a  fact  con- 
firmatory of  the  hypothesis  of  election,  tending  to  show  that 
the  election  of  a  people  to  be  the  recipient  and  vehicle  of 
the  true  religion,  was  at  once  very  necessary  and  very 
real 

One  thing  is  conspicuous  by  its  absence  in  Mosaism :  all 
reference  to  the  state  after  death.  The  fact  has  often  been 
commented  on  and  explanations  of  it  have  been  attempted. 
One  thing  is  certain,  the  omission  cannot  be  due  to  the 
idea  of  a  life  beyond  the  grave  not  having  been  present  t© 
the  mind.  No  one  could  have  lived  in  Egypt  even  for  a 
short  time  without  hearing  of  the  underworld  with  its 
states  of  bliss  and  woe,  and  becoming  familiar  with  the  arts 
of  embalming  by  which  the  Egyptians,  in  a  futile,  childish 
battle  with  corruption,  sought  to  endow  even  the  body  with 
immortality,  and  to  put  the  soul  of  the  deceased  in  the 
same  position  as  if  death  had  not  taken  place.  Herodotus 
gives  to  the  Egyptians  the  credit  of  being  the  first  to  teach 
the  doctrine  that  the  soul  is  immortal,^  and  the  mummies 
found  in  the  most  ancient  monuments  show  that  the  belief 
was  older  than  the  time  of  Moses.  Why,  then,  had  the 
Hebrew  legislator  nothing  to  say  on  the  subject  ?  Pro- 
bably just  because  the  Egyptians  had  so  much.  He  deemed 
it  better  to  have  no  doctrine  of  a  hereafter  at  all  than  such  a 
doctrine  as  prevailed  in  the  land  of  bondage.  That  gloomy 
underworld  presided  over  by  a  dead  divinity,  that  for- 
bidding judgment  scene  in  the  hall  of  the  two  truths,  that 
dismal  dogma  of  the  transmigration  of  souls,  that  ghastly 
practice  of  embalming — these  were  all  things  it  were 
better  to  get  banished  from  the  mind.  The  religion  of 
Egypt  has  been  appropriately  called  the  religion  of  death. 
From  such  a  religion  the  healthy  Hebrew  nature  would 
instinctively  recoil  Hence  the  expressive  silence  as  to 
*  HUtoria,  ii.  123. 


MOSAISM.  225 

the  state  beyond  in  the  religion  of  Moses,  which  may  with 
equal  propriety  be  called  the  religion  of  life.  Instead  of 
a  dead  divinity  judge  of  men  after  dissolution,  it  places  a 
living  divinity,  who  has  done  great  things  for  Israel  in  grace 
and  mercy,  in  the  forefront  of  the  law  which  seeks  to 
regulate  life  on  earth.  Instead  of  saying,  Live  well,  for 
remember,  Osiris  will  judge  you,  it  says  rather.  Live  well, 
for  the  Lord  thy  God  brought  thee  out  of  the  land  of 
Egypt.  Instead  of  promising  a  life  of  bliss  in  the  next 
world,  which  is  but  a  shadow  of  the  life  on  earth,  it  pro- 
mises rather  as  the  reward  of  well-doing  national  prosperity 
in  the  present  world.  Fear  God,  said  Moses  in  effect  to 
Israel,  "  fear  God,  and  do  good,  so  shalt  thou  dwell  in  the 
land,  and  thou  shalt  be  fed ;  and  for  the  rest  leave  yourself 
in  God's  hands.  When  you  die,  commit  your  soul  to  Him 
who  gave  it,  and  leave  your  body  not  to  the  embalmers,  but 
to  friends  to  bury  it  in  the  dust" 

It  has  been  suggested  that  the  Exodus  was  the  finale  of 
a  great  religious  war  between  the  Hebrews  and  the  Egyp- 
tians.^ It  may  appear  a  hazardous  conjecture,  though  the 
references  in  the  Pentateuch  to  the  gods  of  Egypt  as 
involved  in  tlie  judgments  executed  on  the  people,  seem  to 
offer  some  foundation  for  it*  But  the  two  religions  were 
certainly  very  antagonistic  in  spirit,  and  when  peoples 
cherishing  so  entirely  diverse  ideas  about  God  and  man, 
and  life  and  death,  live  together  in  the  same  land,  rupture 
must  come  sooner  or  later.  Each  must  go  its  own  way, 
and  the  two  ways  lead  in  very  different  directions.  The 
way  of  Israel  leads  to  light  and  imperishable  blessing  for 
the  world ;  the  way  of  Egypt  leads  to  decay  and  death 
Bverlasting. 

1  EwkkL,  0uehiehu  dm  FoOm  Itrmd^  Bud  IL  fk  iOb 
>  b.  XT.  11 ;  Nam.  iil.  4. 


220  APOLOQBTIUb 

CHAPTER  V. 

PBOPHETISIL 

LiTERATUBE. — Ewald,  Die  Prophetm  de$  Alien  Btmde$; 
Tholuck,  Die  Propheten  und  ihre  Weissagungcn ;  Kuenen, 
Prophets  and  Prophecy  in  Israel ;  Koenig,  der  Offenbarungt- 
legriff  des  Alien  Testaments  ;  Eobertson  Smith,  The  PropheU 
of  Israel;  Reuss,  La  Bible  {Les  Prophetes);  Duhm,  Die 
Theologie  der  Propheten;  DufiP,  Old  Testament  Theology; 
Darmesteter,  Les  Prophetes  d' Israel  (a  series  of  reviews,  the 
first  of  chief  importance),  1892  ;  Eenan,  Histoirt  du  Peuple 
d^ Israel,  vol  ill 

Mosaism,  as  a  distinct  phase  of  Israel's  religious  history, 
may  be  regarded  as  extending  from  the  Exodus  to  the 
eighth  century  B.C.,  covering  a  period  of  some  600  years. 
During  that  long  stretch  of  time  Mosaic  ideas  worked  like 
a  ferment  among  the  chosen  people,  ever  tending  to  make 
them  in  thought  and  conduct  a  people  answering  to  the 
divine  purpose  in  calling  them,  It  is  needless  to  say  that 
throughout  these  centuries,  and  especially  those  immediately 
following  the  conquest  of  Canaan,  the  Mosaic  programme 
— Israel  a  holy  nation  in  covenant  with  Jehovah,  the  one 
true  righteous  God — remained  to  a  large  extent  an  un- 
realised ideal.  The  realisation,  even  approximately,  of  lofty 
ideals  is  never  the  work  of  a  day.  It  was  to  be  expected 
that  the  height  of  inspiration  reached  by  a  prophetic  mind, 
at  a  great  crisis  like  the  Exodus,  would  not  be  sustained. 
Lapse  to  a  lower  moral  and  religious  level  was  inevitable. 
It  would  not  surprise  us  to  find  the  "  holy  nation  "  of  God's 
purpose  scarce  conscious  of  being  a  nation,  far  from  holiness, 
and  very  unmindful  of  the  Jehovah  who  brought  their 
fathers  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt.  Such  were  the  facts 
regarding  Israel  during  the  period  of  the  "Judges."  It 
was  an  obscure  time  of  rude  beginnings,  of  which  the  book 
of  Judges  gives  a  graphic  and,  in  general  outline  if  not  in 
all  details,  true  life-like  picture.     It  is  an  interesting  and 


PROPHKTISM.  227 

hopeful  story,  in  spite  of  its  barbarisms,  political,  moral., 
and  religious;  for  it  is  the  story  not  of  a  corrupt  effete 
nation  drawing  nigh  to  its  end,  but  of  a  young  people  in 
the  act  of  forming  itself  into  a  nation ;  abounding  in  the 
virtues  and  also  in  the  faults  of  youth ;  too  independent  to 
tolerate  a  central  authority ;  ever  ready  to  fight  with  the 
old  occupants  of  Canaan,  yet  only  too  accessible  to  the 
fascinations  of  their  evil  religious  customs;  capable  of 
great  moral  excesses,  yet  not  without  a  certain  robustness 
of  conscience  that  can  be  roused  into  indignation  and  swift 
vengeance  by  a  crime  which  outrages  natural  feeling. 

At  the  close  of  this  dark  age  of  beginnings  appeared  a 
faithful  representative  of  Mosaism,  under  whose  influence 
and  guidance  the  fortunes  of  the  chosen  people  took  a 
new  turn.  Samuel  did  two  things  for  Israel.  He  recalled 
her  to  her  allegiance  to  Jehovah,  and  he  made  her  feel  as 
she  had  never  done  before  that  she  was  one  peopla  The 
sense  of  national  unity  took  practical  shape  in  the  desire 
for  a  king,  and  for  a  hundred  years  the  twelve  tribes 
enjoyed  the  happy,  proud  consciousness  of  forming  a  strong 
united  kingdom  under  the  reigns  of  Saul,  David,  and 
Solomon.  But  experience  proved  that  it  was  as  difficult 
to  find  a  perfectly  just  wise  king  ruling  in  the  fear  of  God 
and  for  the  general  good,  as  to  be  a  holy  nation.  Bonds 
recently  cemented  are  easily  broken,  and  unjust  partial 
government  provokes  rebellion.  So  it  came  to  pass  that 
national  unity  was  soon  disrupted,  and  two  rival  kingdoms 
took  the  place  of  on&  The  true  religion,  or  indeed  anything 
good,  was  not  likely  to  flourish  under  such  circumstances. 
Of  the  years  which  followed  the  rupture  we  know  little, 
and  what  is  recorded  is  far  from  satisfactory.  The  first 
bright  event  relieving  the  gloom  of  an  evil  time  is  the 
appearance  of  the  heroic  prophetic  figure  of  Elijah  the 
Tishbite,  in  the  reign  of  Ahab,  King  of  Israel.  His  task 
was  to  affirm  with  tremendous  emphasis  the  truth :  Jehovah 
the  one  God  in  Israel,  against  the  king,  who,  having  married 
a  Tyrian  princess,  thought  good  to  associate  with  Jehovah, 


228  APOLOGETICS. 

as  an  object  of  worship,  the  Tyrian  divinity  Baal.     To 

king  and  people  this  act  might  seem  nothing  more  than  a 
courteous  compliance  with  custom  towards  the  gods  of  a 
friendly  nation,  which  could  not  well  be  avoided  if  Israel 
was  not  to  be  entirely  isolated.  But  Elijah  cared  nothing 
for  state  courtesies  and  expediencies.  He  was  jealous  for 
Jehovah's  honour,  and  believed  and  taught  that  Jehovah 
was  a  jealous  God  who  would  brook  no  rival,  so  doing  his 
best  to  bring  his  countrymen  back  to  the  Mosaic  ideal: 
"  Thou  shalt  have  no  other  gods  before  me." 

Elijah's  zeal  would  have  been  much  ado  about  nothing 
if  the  Jehovah  he  championed  had  been  a  mere  physical 
deity  like  the  gods  of  the  pagan  Semites.  It  would  then 
have  been  a  question  between  him  and  Ahab  whether  one 
or  two  divinities  of  the  same  sort  were  to  be  worshipped 
in  the  land.  Elijah  might  in  that  case  have  been  the 
better  patriot,  more  faithful  than  Ahab  to  the  national 
spirit  and  traditions,  but  no  moral  interest  would  have 
been  involved  in  the  quarrel  The  question  between  the 
prophet  and  the  king  was  of  vital  moment  only  if  Jehovah, 
as  the  former  conceived  Him,  was  a  different  kind  of  god 
from  Baal ;  not  a  mere  national  god,  but  a  God  with  a 
definite  moral  character,  to  whom  righteousness  was  the 
supreme  interest.  If  such  was  the  God  Elijah  believed  in, 
he  did  well  to  resist  the  introduction  of  other  deities  -in 
his  jealousy  for  Jehovah.  To  place  Baal  beside  Jehovah 
was  to  rob  Jehovah  of  His  distinctive  character,  and  to 
degrade  Him  to  the  level  of  a  merely  national  deity. 
Jealousy  is  a  just  feeling  in  the  worshippers  of  an  ethical 
god,  as  it  is  an  appropriate  attribute  of  the  god  they 
worship.  To  say  of  God  that  He  is  jealous  is  to  afl&rm 
that  moral  distinctions  are  real  for  Him,  and  to  impute 
jealousy  to  His  worshippers  is  to  say  in  effect  that  the 
ethical  interest  in  religion  is  the  thing  of  supreme  concern 
to  them.  So  we  must  understand  the  zeal  of  EUjah.  It 
was  Di3t  the  zeal  of  a  patriot  merely ;  it  was  the  seal  of  a 
man  who  cared  above  all  things  for  justice  and  purity  and 


PEOPHETISM.  229 

all  the  moral  interests  covered  by  the  Decalogue.  The 
key  to  his  character  and  public  conduct  may  be  found  in 
his  denunciation  of  the  wickedness  of  Aliab  in  taking 
forcible  possession  of  Naboth's  vineyard.  There  we  see 
what  all  along  he  has  been  aiming  at  in  his  uncompromis- 
ing opposition  to  BaaL  He  will  have  Israel  worship  alone 
that  God  who  loves  right  and  hates  ill,  and  suffers  no 
iniquity  to  go  unpunished,  even  though  it  be  perpetrated 
by  powerful  rulers  against  defenceless  subjects. 

Can  it  be,  as  critics  allege,  that  this  man  tolerated 
the  worship  of  Jehovah  by  images  ?  If  he  did,  it  must 
have  been  because  the  supposed  existing  practice  in  that 
respect  did  not  appear  to  him  as  compromising  the  moral 
character  of  Jehovah.  The  question  is  not  of  vital  im- 
portance, unless  it  be  assumed  that  the  worship  of  Jehovah 
under  the  form  of  an  ox  necessarily  implies  that  Jehovah 
was  conceived  of  as  a  physical  divinity  like  Baal.  We 
are  not,  however,  shut  up  to  this  position.  The  ox  might 
be  simply  a  symbol  like  the  cherubim,  and  symbolism  in 
religion,  whatever  its  dangers,  is  not  incompatible  with  the 
spirituality  of  the  object  of  worship.  But  take  the  case  at 
its  worst.  Grant  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  ox  was  to 
be  seen  in  the  days  of  Elijah  in  the  provincial  sanctuaries 
devoted  to  the  worship  of  Jehovah,  and  that  its  presence 
there  was  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  Mosaism  as  expressed 
in  the  Decalogue,  and  not  without  peril  to  the  pure  wor- 
ship of  Israel's  God,  and  that  Elijah  looked  on  and  said 
nothing.  What  then  ?  Does  it  follow  that  he  altogether 
approved?  No,  but  only  that  his  attention  was  absorbed 
by  a  far  greater  evil.  First  get  rid  of  Baal,  the  foul 
divinity  of  Tyre,  then  there  may  be  time  to  attend  to  the 
minor  abuse  of  images  in  the  sanctuaries  of  Jehovah.^ 

Elijah's  protest  produced  important  immediate  results,  but 

*  Professor  Robertson,  advocating  this  view  of  Elijali's  conduct,  and  com- 
paring his  action  with  that  of  the  lafeir  prophets  who  waged  war  with  imiges, 
illustrates  the  situation  by  a  historic  parallel.  ' '  The  two  crises  are  very 
much  like  those  which  Europe  passed  through  in  its  religious  history — first 
the  struggle  as  to  whether  the  Crescent  or  the  Cross  should  be  the  recognised 


230  AFOLOGETICa 

it  wrought  no  permanent  deliverance.  The  kings  and  people 
of  Israel  went  on  in  their  evil  way,  so  that  after  the  lapse 
of  a  century  it  was  becoming  evident  to  observing  minds 
that  the  nation  was  ripening  for  judgment  just  when 
Providence  was  preparing  in  the  East  the  instrument  of 
her  punishment.  The  situation  offered  a  splendid  oppor- 
tunity for  the  reaffirmation  of  the  principles  of  Mosaism, 
with  fresh  inspiration,  and  with  new  developments  adapted 
to  the  novel  circumstances.  Such  was  the  service  rendered 
by  the  prophets  of  the  eighth  century  B.a 

We  must  be  careful  neither  to  overestimate  nor  to 
underestimate  the  achievement  of  these  remarkable  men, 
with  whose  general  religious  ideas  we  have  already  made 
ourselves  acquainted-  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  an  exaggera- 
tion to  say  that  the  prophets  converted  Jehovah  from  a 
physical  into  an  ethical  deity.  It  is,  of  course,  a  postulate 
of  naturalism  that  the  objects  of  worship  must  be  first 
physical  and  only  at  a  later  stage  in  the  evolution  of 
religion  become  ethical  personalities,  and  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  there  is  much  in  the  history  of  religion  to 
justify  the  assumption.  In  the  case  of  Greece,  e.g,,  the 
gods  worshipped  at  Dodona  and  Olympus  in  the  ancient 
Pelasgic  period — Zeus,  Apollo,  and  Pallas — were  simply 
objects  of  nature  personified.  By  the  time  of  Homer  these 
and  other  physical  divinities  of  the  primitive  time  had 
become  humanised  and  more  or  less  transformed  into 
august  beings  endowed  with  moral  characteristics.  Zeus, 
originally  the  blue  heaven,  had  become  the  father  of  gods 
and  men,  the  ruler  over  all,  the  god  of  moral  order.  It  is 
not  improbable  that  the  nomadic  ancestors  of  Israel  in 
prehistoric  times  were,  like  the  Aryan  races,  nature-wor- 
shippers, and  that  spiritual  conceptions  of  godhead  were  a 
later  acquisition.     What  is  contended  for  is  that  the  trans- 

Bymbol  of  superiority,  and  then  the  Reformation  of  religion  from  its  own 
abnsea  in  the  sixteenth  century," — Early  Religion  of  Israel,  pp.  226,  227. 
Dohm  points  ovt  that  Hosea  was  the  first  to  condemn  worship  of  Jehovah  by 
imagM.     Vide  Die  Theologie  der  Propheten,  p.  101. 


PBOPHETISIL  381 

formation  was  not  reserved  for  the  eighth  century  B.C.  It 
came  much  earlier,  at  least  as  early  as  the  time  of  Moses. 
The  ideality  of  God,  that  He  is  spirit,  that  He  possesses  a 
definite  moral  character,  was  an  article  in  the  Mosaic  creed, 
and  this  faith,  more  or  less  clearly  apprehended,  formed  an 
element  in  the  religious  consciousness  of  the  best  minds  in 
Israel  from  the  days  of  Moses  onwards,*  though  doubtless  it 
had  to  maintain  an  incessant  struggle  for  recognition  against 
lower  and  cruder  viewa  In  proclaiming  an  ethically- 
conceived  Jehovah,  therefore,  the  great  prophets  were  not 
discoverers  of  an  absolutely  new  truth :  they  were  only 
reafi&rmers  with  new  emphasis  of  the  hereditary  faith  of 
Israel,  the  beneficent  source  of  all  that  was  good  in  her 
history  since  the  time  of  the  Exodus. 

"  Eeaffirmers,"  but  certainly  with  new  emphasis,  and 
with  an  intensity  of  conviction  and  a  width  of  comprehen 
sion  which  made  the  old  faith  practically  a  new  revelation. 
The  prophets  of  the  eighth  century  are  not  to  be  conceived 
of  as  mere  echoes  or  tame,  servile  interpreters  of  Moses. 
They  were  the  recipients  of  fresh  inspiration,  and  delivered 
their  message,  whether  in  substance  new  or  old,  as  if  the 
truth  they  announced  had  never  been  heard  of  before. 
Their  thoughts  were  always  subjectively  original,  even 
when  objectively  familiar.  Compared  with  Mosaism  their 
doctrine  was,  to  a  considerable  extent,  even  objectively 
distinctive.  The  difference  corresponds  to  diversity  of 
sitnatioa  Moses,  standing  at  the  beginning  of  Israel's 
history,  was  naturally  concerned  about  making  his  people 
a  nation  with  Jehovah  for  their  own  covenant  God.  Hence 
he  laid  emphasis,  not  on  Jehovah's  universal  relations  to 
the  world,  but  rather  on  His  special  relation  to  the  chosen 
race.  Not  "Jehovah  who  chose  you  is  the  God  of  all," 
but  "  the  God  of  all,  Jehovah,  chose  you,**  was  his  message 
to  the  men  whom  he  brought  out  of  the  land  of  bondaga 

*  Yatke  mftlntitina  that  the  ideality  of  Qod,  at  least  in  abstract  or  get- 
■iaal  fonn,  was  an  element  of  Mosaism.  Vide  DU  Religion  d€»  AUm 
TutamenU,  p.  280. 


232  APOLOGETICS. 

That  Jehovah  was  the  God  over  all  wbb  shown  by  tha 
marvellous  events  through  which  the  redemption  of  Israel 
was  accomplished;  yet  these  events  only  tended  to  give 
prominence  to  the  national  aspect  of  Jehovah's  character. 
Through  them  He  punished  the  Egyptians  for  wTongs 
inflicted  on  His  oppressed  people.  The  prophets,  on  the 
other  hand,  in  their  situation,  quite  as  naturally  gave 
prominence  to  the  universal  aspect.  The  whole  known 
world  was  astir  with  movements  of  which  Israel  was  the 
centre.  In  the  political  life  of  the  nations  they  saw  one 
Mind  and  Will  at  work,  and  the  thought  was  borne  in 
upon  them  with  irresistible  force,  "Jehovah  is  God  over 
aU."  Then  what  did  the  events  that  were  happening  or 
impending  mean  ?  Not  Jehovah  judging  the  nations  for 
Israel's  sake,  but  Jehovah  using  the  nations  to  punish 
Israel  for  her  sins.  On  this  side  also  the  universal  aspect 
rather  than  the  special  comes  to  the  front 

Thus  far  of  the  contrast  between  Mosaism  and  Prophet- 
ism  in  reference  to  the  idea  of  God.  There  is  also  a 
contrast  between  them  in  their  respective  relations  to 
ethical  interests.  Moses  in  his  position  naturally  became 
a  prophetic  legislator.  It  was  his  task  to  codify  duty  for 
the  guidance  of  an  infant  nation.  The  prophets,  coming  on 
the  scene  far  down  in  the  history  of  the  same  people,  had 
to  perform  the  part  of  moral  critics.  While  Moses  set 
before  the  Israel  of  the  Exodus  the  moral  ideal,  the 
prophets  told  the  Israel  of  six  centuries  later  how  far 
short  she  came  of  realising  the  ideal.  The  prophetic  era 
was  not  the  time  for  framing  a  Decalogue:  that  is  the 
proper  work  of  the  initial  epoch ;  it  was  rather  the  time 
for  testing  conduct  by  a  recognised  moral  standard,  a 
function  which  the  prophets  performed  with  an  unswerving 
fidelity  and  a  burning  moral  enthusiasm  that  show  how 
brightly  the  moral  ideal  shone  before  their  spiritual 
eye. 

It  is  to  this  latter  aspect  of  the  prophetic  vocation  that 
we  are  now  more  particularly  to  direct  our  attention.     We 


PROPHETISM.  233 

are  to  make  ourselves  acquainted  with  the  characteristics 
of  the  prophets  viewed  as  moral  critics  of  their  time. 

1.  The  first  grand  fundamental  feature  to  be  noted  in 
this  connection  is  the  passion  for  righteousness  with  which 
all  the  prophets  were  consumed  as  if  by  a  divine  fire 
burning  in  their  hearts.  In  most  men  the  moral  sense  is 
so  feeble  that  it  is  difiRcult  for  them  to  understand  or 
sympathise  with  this  feature  of  the  prophetic  character. 
Hence  prophetic  men,  since  the  world  began,  have  never 
been  understood  or  appreciated  in  their  own  time.  They 
have  been  deemed  fools,  madmen,  revolutionists,  impious 
miscreants ;  anything  but  what  they  were :  the  wisest,  the 
noblest,  the  truest  in  their  generation.  Against  such  there 
has  ever  been  a  law  of  convention  and  moral  mediocrity, 
which  condemns  the  unusually  good  with  not  less  severity 
and  confidence  than  the  unusually  evil  Happily  the 
world  slowly  wakens  up  to  the  fact  that  a  few  unusually 
good,  wise,  and  earnest  men  now  and  then  appear,  and 
recognises  them  as  such  after  they  are  dead,  though  it 
cannot  endure  them  when  living.  To  this  "  goodly  fellow- 
ship "  belonged  the  Hebrew  prophets ;  and  that  they  were 
of  this  type  and  temper  is  the  first  fact  to  be  laid  to  heart 
concerning  them  if  we  would  understand  their  character, 
vocation,  and  life-work.  There  have  been  men  of  the  same 
type  and  temper  in  other  lands,  in  all  ages ;  such  men 
exist  in  the  world  still ;  it  would  be  a  wretched  world 
without  them,  for  they  are  the  very  salt  of  the  earth.  But 
the  Hebrew  prophets  are  the  first  and  best  of  their  kind : 
men  of  absolutely  unparalleled  moral  earnestness. 

2.  To  this  subjective  disposition  the  prophets  united  a 
congruous  faith  in  an  objective  moral  order,  in  a  power 
not  themselves  making  for  righteousness,  in  a  living  God 
who  was  at  least  as  earnest  as  themselves  in  loving  right 
and  hating  wrong,  and  wielding  His  power  for  the  advance- 
ment of  the  one  and  the  repression  of  the  other.  This 
morally  earnest  God,  they  believed,  exercised  a  just  benign 
rule  over  all  peoples  dwelling  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 


234  APOIiOOBnOB. 

Hence  they  did  not,  as  moral  critics,  confine  their  attention 
to  the  conduct  of  Israel,  though  for  obvious  reasons  that 
was  the  most  frequent  subject  of  their  animadversions. 
They  had  a  word  of  God  for  tdl  the  nations  in  turn.  Their 
prophetic  messages  did  not  actually  reach  the  nations  con- 
cerned. They  were  really  intended  for  the  ear  of  Israel, 
as  moral  lessons  in  the  grand  doctrine  of  an  absolutely 
universal,  impartial  moral  order,  enforced  by  the  just  will 
of  Jehovah.  The  judgments  on  Babylon,  Egypt,  Tyre,  etc., 
were  a  concrete  way  of  saying  to  their  countrymen :  God 
is  just ;  He  will  not  suffer  wrong  permanently  to  prosper ; 
therefore  fear  ye  and  sin  not.  The  chief  interest  to  us,  as 
to  those  to  whom  these  prophecies  of  doom  were  first 
spoken,  lies  in  the  breadth  and  power  with  which  God's 
moral  government  is  asserted.  Not  in  the  accuracy  with 
which  the  fate  of  the  nations  was  predicted,  revealing  a 
miracle  of  prophetic  foresight,  lies  the  abiding  value  of 
these  oracles,  but  in  the  fact  that  all  nations  are  brought 
within  the  sweep  of  the  divine  moral  order.  That  the  fate 
predicted  did  overtake  the  nations  is  satisfactory  evidence 
that  the  prophetic  faith  in  that  order  was  not  mistaken.^ 

3.  It  was  to  be  expected  that  men  possessed  with  a 
passion  for  righteousness  would  place  morality  above 
religious  ritual,  and  have  for  their  watchword  not  holiness 
but  righteousness.  Such  was  the  fact  in  the  case  of  -all 
the  prophets,  distinctive  characteristics  notwithstanding. 
It  has  been  remarked  that,  while  in  Amos  the  ethical 
element  is  supreme,  in  Hosea  the  religious  element  is  in 
the  ascendant*     The  statement  has  its  relative  truth,  but 

*  The  predictive  aspect  of  prophecy  almost    exclusively  occupied    the 

attention  of  the  older  apologists.  Predictions  marvellously  fulfilled,  even 
to  the  minutest  details,  supplied  for  them  welcome  evidence  that  the  pro- 
phets  were  the  divinely  accredited  messengers  of  s  doctrinal  revelation. 
Tkia  view  is  now  allowed  to  retire  into  the  background,  and  the  best 
evidence  that  God  spoke  through  the  prophets  is  found  in  the  high  ethical 
character  of  their  teaching.  Vide  on  this  The  Chief  End  of  JRevekUion, 
chap.  V. 

•  So  Duhm  in  Die  Theologie  der  Propheten,  p.  127. 


PBOPHETISIL  236 

not  in  a  sense  implying  that  Hosea  placed  ritual  above 
righteousness.  It  is  Hosea  that  says :  "  I  desired  mercy, 
and  not  sacrifice;  and  the  knowledge  of  God  more  than 
burnt  offerings."  *  In  few  words  this  expresses  the  com- 
mon attitude  of  the  prophets.  Nothing  is  more  frequent 
and  more  familiar  in  the  prophetic  writings  than  con- 
temptuous reference  to  careful  performance  of  religious 
duties  by  a  people  far  from  God  and  righteousness  in 
heart  and  life. 

This  anti-ritualistic  polemic  of  the  prophets  is  not 
decisive  as  to  the  non-Mosaicity  of  the  Levitical  law. 
Even  if  the  priestly  code,  as  we  find  it  in  the  middle 
books  of  the  Pentateuch,  had  been  an  exact  record  of  Mosaic 
legislation  for  the  regulation  of  worship,  and  recognised  as 
such  by  the  prophets,  and  the  religious  services  of  their 
contemporaries  had  been  down  to  the  minutest  detail  in 
scrupulous  accordance  with  the  rubric,  their  verdict 
would  have  been  the  same.  When  Amos,  in  God's  name 
says :  "  I  hate,  I  despise  your  fast  days,  and  I  will  not 
smell  in  your  solemn  assemblies.  Though  ye  offer  me 
burnt  offerings  and  your  meat  offerings,  I  will  not  accept 
them :  neither  will  I  regard  the  peace  offerings  of  your  fat 
beasts,"  '  he  does  not  necessarily  mean  to  characterise  these 
acts  as  mere  will-worship,  an  unauthorised  and  therefore 
unacceptable  system  of  religious  ceremoniaL  The  question 
put  in  a  subsequent  verse :  "  Did  ye  bring  unto  me  sacrifices 
and  offerings  in  the  wilderness  forty  years,  O  house  of 
Israel?  "  •  does  seem  to  point  that  way,  and,  with  the  similar 
statement  of  Jeremiah,*  must  be  taken  into  account  by 
those  who  contend  for  the  Mosaic  origin  of  the  Levitical 
ritual.  The  point  insisted  on  here  is  that  the  deuuncia- 
tions  hurled  by  the  prophets  at  the  religion  of  their  con- 
temporaries is  not  a  conclusive  argument  on  the  negative 
side  of  that  question.  However  orthodox  or  regular  it 
might  be,  they  would  have  spoken  of  it  in  the  same  scornful 

>  Ho8.  vL6.  *  Amos  t.  31,  32. 

■  Amoe  T.  3S.  *  JC«r.  vii.  22^  38. 


236  APOLOGETICS. 

style,  80  long  as  it  was  sussociated  with  an  nnrighteoas  life, 
Their  animadversions  were  not  directed  against  a  self- 
invented  worship  in  the  interest  of  worship  according  to 
rule,  but  against  all  religion,  orthodox  or  heterodox,  divorced 
from  right  conduct.  If  the  ritual  was  in  itself  legitimate, 
so  much  the  more  pronounced  does  their  zeal  for  the 
ethical  versus  the  religious  element  appear.  And  we  mast 
not  hesitate  to  credit  them  with  the  courage  to  assert  their 
great  principle, — the  supremacy  of  the  moral, — even  at  the 
risk  of  their  seeming  to  be  guilty  of  irreverence.  They 
claimed  unrestricted  liberty  of  prophesying.  They  did  not 
hold  themselves  bound  by  each  other's  opinions.  The 
prophets  of  one  generation  might  modify  or  cancel  the 
oracles  of  those  of  a  preceding  generation.  If  Elijah 
tolerated  images  in  the  worship  of  Jehovah,  that  was  no 
reason  why  Hosea  should  not  denounce  the  calves.  If 
Isaiah's  watchword  was  the  inviolability  of  Zion,  that  was 
no  reason  why  Jeremiah  should  not  utter  the  word  of 
doom  against  the  temple.  Like  Christ,  the  prophets  could 
dare  on  due  occasion  even  to  criticise  Moses:  witness 
their  reversal  of  the  adage  concerning  the  fathers  eating 
sour  grapes,  in  contradiction  to  the  traditional  and  pre- 
sumably Mosaic  doctrine  that  the  sins  of  fathers  are  visited 
on  their  children  to  the  third  and  fourth  generations.^  They 
recognised  no  standard  of  unchangeable  orthodoxy  :  the  one 
law  they  owned  was  that  of  loyally  following  the  present 
light  vouchsafed  by  heaven  to  their  own  souls. 

Nothing  is  more  remarkable  in  the  prophetic  character 
than  an  exquisite  sensitiveness  to  everything  savouring  of 
insincerity.  It  revealed  itself  in  the  abhorrence,  justly  com- 
mented on,  of  all  religion  divorced  from  right  conduct. 
It  showed  itself  equally  in  a  careful  avoidance  of  whatever 
approached  untruthfulness  in  religious  language.  The 
prophets  considered  it  a  sin  to  echo  current  opinion 
even  when  true.  Jeremiah  stigmatises  the  practice  as 
stealing  God's  word  eveiy  one  from  his  neighbour.*  He 
^  Ex.  xzxiv.  7.  >  Jer.  zziii.  SO. 


PROPHETISM.  23  V 

held,  and  all  the  prophets  held,  that  a  prophet  ought  to 
speak  at  first  hand ;  not  what  had  come  to  his  ear  through 
hearsay,  but  what  God  had  revealed  to  his  own  heart.  To 
repeat  the  thought  of  another,  and  say.  He  saith,  was  a 
practical  lie :  it  was  giving  out  as  a  personal  conviction 
what  had  been  slavishly  accepted  on  authority.  For  a 
similar  reason  the  prophets,  Jeremiah  again  being  witness, 
regarded  with  loathing  the  continued  use  of  pious  phrases 
which  had  ceased  to  represent  conviction.  "The  burden 
of  the  Lord"  is  the  instance  given.  What  that  phrase 
ought  to  mean !  what  it  did  mean  to  the  genuine  prophet, 
as  when  he  had  to  foretell  the  approaching  ruin  of  his 
country !  And  yet  how  lightly  the  burden  lay  on  many 
to  whom  the  next  prophetic  oracle  was  only  a  matter  of 
idle  curiosity.  No  wonder  the  sorrow-laden  man  of  God 
uttered  his  stern  interdict  against  the  further  use  of  a  cant 
phrase,  saying,  "  The  burden  of  the  Lord  shall  ye  mention 
no  more."  ^ 

Two  remarks  more  may  be  added  before  passing  from 
the  present  topic.  One  is  that  in  putting  morality  above 
ritual  the  prophets  were  true  to  the  spirit  of  Mosaism, 
whose  grand  monument  is  the  Decalogue,  wherein  ritual 
has  no  place.  With  Moses,  as  with  the  prophets,  morality 
was  primary,  ritual  secondary.  In  taking  up  this  position 
both  Moses  and  the  prophets  rose  far  above  the  level  of 
heathenism,  to  which  a  breach  of  ritual  has  ever  appeared 
at  least  as  serious  as  a  departure  from  the  laws  of  justice 
and  mercy.  It  was  a  great  step  onwards  and  upwards  in 
the  morsil  development  of  humanity,  when  dififerentiation 
of  the  two  kinds  of  action  began  to  take  place,  and  it  was 
fecognised  that  it  was  a  worse  thing  to  kill,  or  steal,  or  lie, 
than  to  make  a  slight  mistake  in  religious  ceremonial. 
That  first  step  was  taken  by  Moses,  and  the  prophets  only 
followed  his  lead  when  they  strove  by  unwearied  iteration 
to  indoctrinate  their  countrymen  in  the  great  truth  that 
jostice  and  mercy  are  better  than   sacrifioe.     It  is  the 

"  J«r.  xziii.  36. 


238  APOLOGETICS. 

lesson  of  the  Scriptures  from  beginning  to  end,  yet  Chris* 
tendom,  accepting  them  as  the  rule  of  faith  and  practice, 
is  far  even  now  from  having  thoroughly  learned  it 

The  other  observation  has  reference  to  the  question, 
How  far  had  the  literary  prophets  a  hand  in  bringing  about 
changes  in  rehgious  practice,  such  as  the  abolition  of  pro- 
vincial sanctuaries  and  the  concentration  of  worship  in  the 
one  central  sanctuary  ?  The  question  is  mixed  up  with 
debateable  matters  of  criticism  into  which  I  cannot  enter. 
The  point  I  desire  to  make  is  that  whatever  line  of  action 
the  prophets  may  have  pursued  in  connection  with  religious 
reform,  it  would  have  for  its  guiding  motive  regard  to 
ethical  interests.  They  would  strike  into  the  movement 
because  they  saw  that  grievous  moral  abuses  were  con- 
nected with  the  existing  customs.  This  remark  applies 
even  to  Hosea.  The  sin  he  denounces  is  not  idolatry  in 
the  abstract,  but  idolatry  associated  with  the  moral  licence 
of  Canaanitish  and  pagan  Semitic  worship.  "  Whoredom 
and  wine  and  new  wine  take  away  the  heart;"*  how 
suggestive  these  words  of  Dionysiac  orgies,  accompanied 
with  drunken  excesses  and  shameless  sacred  prostitution ! 
Who,  duly  concerned  for  temperance  and  purity,  would 
not  wish  these  "  holy  fairs  "  put  down  ? 

4.  It  is  important  to  note  that  the  moral  ideal  of  the 
prophets,  while  high,  is  thoroughly  healthy  and  genial. 
Two  features  are  specially  noteworthy — the  spirit  of  com- 
passion which  breathes  through  all  prophetic  utterances, 
and  the  entire  absence  from  them  of  any  trace  of  asceticism. 
The  prophets  are  the  champions  of  the  poor  and  needy 
against  the  powerful  and  the  proud,  and  yet  while  sternly 
demanding,  even  from  kings,  the  practice  of  justice  and 
mercy,  they  have  nothing  to  say  against  a  man  enjoying 
life  according;  to  his  station.  The  classic  utterance  here 
is  that  of  Micah:  To  the  man  who  inquires  what  God 
requires  of  him,  imagining  that  some  terrible  sacrifices  are 
included  among  the  divine  demands,  the  prophet  replies  t 

1  Hoi.  It.  11. 


PROPHETISM.  239 

*  He  hath  shewed  thee,  0  man,  what  is  good ;  and  what 
doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love 
mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God  ? "  *  Not  less 
significant  is  the  language  addressed  to  a  luxurious  selfish 
monarch  by  the  prophet  Jeremiah :  "  Shalt  thou  reign, 
because  thou  closest  thyself  in  cedar  ?  Did  not  thy  father 
eat  and  drink,  and  do  judgment  and  justice,  and  then  it 
was  well  with  him  ?  He  judged  the  cause  of  the  poor  and 
needy ;  then  it  was  well  with  him.  Was  not  this  to  know 
me  ?  saith  the  Lord."  '  Do  justly  and  love  mercy,  and  for 
the  rest  enjoy  life  within  the  limits  of  wise  moderation, 
what  a  thoroughly  reasonable  scheme  of  conduct !  The 
prophets  anticipated  modem  altruism,  and  understood  that 
the  service  of  others  and  the  enjoyment  of  personal  happi- 
ness are  perfectly  compatible.  It  never  entered  into  their 
minds  that  ascetic  renunciations  and  self-tortures,  such  as 
were  practised  both  before  and  after  their  time  in  India, 
could  benefit  any  one.  How  much  healthier  the  Hebrew 
moral  ideal  than  that  of  the  Brahmans  and  the  Buddhists. 
6.  For  men  of  such  moral  intensity  as  characterised  the 
prophets,  trials  of  their  faith  in  the  righteous  government 
of  God  were  inevitable.  For  the  moral  order  of  the  world 
is  slow,  if  sure,  in  its  action,  and  while  just  on  the  whole 
seems  far  from  just  in  many  particular  instances.  Snch 
trials  are  appointed  for  all  earnest  believers  in  God,  and 
they  fell  upon  the  prophets  in  the  most  acute  form  just 
because  they  were  so  tremendously  in  earnest  in  believing 
that  Jehovah  was  righteous  in  all  His  ways.  Moses,  the 
first  of  the  prophets,  was  no  exception  to  this  statement 
At  the  period  of  the  Exodus,  indeed,  Providence  appeared 
to  be  at  his  bidding.  Said,  done,  was  the  order  of  the  day. 
There  was  hardly  time  to  pray  before  needed  aid  came. 
"  Wherefore  criest  thou  unto  me  ?  speak  unto  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel,  that  they  go  forward."*  The  hour  of 
deliverance  had  come,  and  Providence  was  wide  awake. 
Bat  a  long  dreary  period  of  oppression  had  gone  before, 
^  Mkah  tL  8.  *  Jer.  zziL  16,  16.  •b.  zir.  IS. 


1440  APOLOGETICS. 

when  the  God  of  Israel  seemed  asleep,  or  indifferent,  oi 
iin potent.  That  was  for  Moses  a  time  of  patient  waiting 
in  the  Arabian  desert,  nursing  patriotic  hope  and  watching 
for  the  dawn.  Such  waiting  on  God  is  a  notable  feature 
in  the  experience  of  all  men  destined  to  leave  their  mark 
on  the  world's  history.  The  men  of  the  Bible  knew  it 
well.  Prophets  and  psalmists  often  speak  of  it  in  language 
thrilling  with  emotion,  teaching  that  we  have  to  wait  on 
God,  and  that  it  is  worth  our  while  to  wait.  "  I  will  wait 
upon  Jehovah,  that  hideth  His  face  from  the  house  of 
Jacob,"  ^  writes  Isaiah,  pointing  to  good  for  Israel  fervently 
desired,  but  for  a  season  withheld.  "  Blessed  are  all  they 
that  wait  for  Him,"^  writes  the  same  prophet  in  a  later 
prophecy,  conveying  the  confident  assurance  that  God 
will  not  permanently  disappoint  the  expectation  of  those 
who  trust  Him.  To  these  utterances  all  Old  Testament 
prophecy  says  Amen. 

Nothing  is  more  admirable  than  the  perfect  candour  with 
which  the  prophets  lay  bare  their  hearts,  and  reveal  the 
struggle  goiug  on  there  between  faith  and  doubt  occasioned 
by  the  absence  of  a  perfect  correspondence  between  conduct 
and  lot.  Two  prophets  of  the  Chaldean  period,  Jeremiah 
and  Habakkuk,  are  conspicuous  in  this  respect.  Jeremiah 
writes :  "  Eighteous  art  Thou,  0  Lord,  when  I  plead  with 
Thee.  Yet  let  me  talk  with  Thee  of  Thy  judgments: 
Wherefore  doth  the  way  of  the  wicked  prosper  ?  wherefore 
are  all  they  happy  that  deal  very  treacherously  I  Thou 
hast  planted  them,  yea,  they  have  taken  root :  they  grow, 
yea,  they  bring  forth  fruit  Thou  art  near  in  their  mouth, 
and  far  from  their  reins.  But  Thou,  O  Lord,  knowest  me : 
Thou  hast  seen  me,  and  tried  mine  heart  towards  Thee."' 
In  the  same  spirit  Habakkuk  complains :  "  Art  Thou  not 
from  everlasting,  O  Lord  my  God,  mine  Holy  One  ?  We 
shall  not  die.  0  Lord,  Thou  hast  ordained  them  for 
judgment;  and,  O  mighty  Gx>d,  Thou  hast  established  them 
''or  correction.  Thou  art  of  purer  eyea  than  to  behold 
'  Ua..  viii.  17.  •  Im.  xxi.  18.  •  Jer.  xiL  1-8. 


fKOPHETISM,  241 

evfl,  and  canst  not  look  on  iniquity:  wherefore  loosest 
Thou  upon  them  that  deal  treacherously,  and  holdest  Thy 
tongue  when  the  wicked  devoureth  the  man  that  is  more 
righteous  than  he?"*  Jeremiah's  perplexity  arises  from 
the  contrast  between  the  prosperity  of  evil  men  within 
Israel  and  the  tribulations  which  have  overtaken  himself, 
a  man  conscious  of  entire  devotion  to  God's  service.  What 
Habakkuk  wonders  at  is  that  a  nation  like  the  Chaldeans 
is  permitted  to  crush  a  people  like  Israel,  with  all  her 
faults  greatly  superior  to  her  oppressor,  and  containing 
many  persons  faithful  to  God  and  to  righteousness.  In 
both  cases  the  problem  is  more  or  less  distinctly  one  of 
individual  experienca  Both  prophets  virtually  ask,  Why 
should  I,  and  others  like  me,  fare  so  iU  at  the  hands  of 
godless  men,  fellow-countrymen  or  foreigners,  who  seem  to 
have  the  power  to  do  whatever  they  please  ?  It  was 
about  the  time  of  Jeremiah  that  the  problem  began  to 
assume  the  individual  form,  a  fact  which  may  be  used  as 
a  canon  of  criticism  for  fixing  the  dates  of  the  book  of 
Job,  and  of  many  of  the  Psalms  in  which  the  puzzling 
questions  of  human  life  are  looked  at  from  the  individual 
point  of  view.  It  is  when  thus  viewed  that  these  questions 
become  most  perplexing.  It  is  never  very  difficult  to 
answer  the  question,  Why  does  a  nation  suffer  ?  There  ia 
always  seen  in  the  best  nation  a  sufficient  amount  of 
misconduct  to  lend  at  least  plausibility  to  the  suggestion 
that  she  suffers  for  her  sins.  But  when  great  calamity 
falls  on  a  man  like  Job,  described  as  "  perfect  and  upright, 
one  that  feared  God  and  eschewed  evil,"  or  like  Jeremiah, 
able  to  call  God  to  bear  witness  to  his  moral  fidelity,  the 
sense  of  disharmony  between  character  and  lot  becomes 
very  acute,  and  the  need  for  a  theodicy  very  pressing. 
We  cannot  claim  for  the  prophets  and  psalmists,  or  for  the 
unknown  author  of  the  book  of  Job,  that  they  give  us  a 
perfect  solution  of  the  problem,  though  here  and  there 
hints  of  the  true  solution  are  traceable.      Bat  we  may 

1  HaK  L  la,  18. 


242  AFOLOOKnOS. 

claim  for  them  that  they  have  adequately  stated  the 
difficulty,  not  merely  by  what  they  say,  but  by  what  they 
were.  They  were  noble,  leal-hearted,  morally  faithful  men, 
with  a  lofty,  exacting  ideal  of  life,  to  which  amid  all 
temptation  they  remained  true;  perfect  in  the  scriptural 
sense  of  being  single-minded,  while  not  free  from  defects 
and  infirmities.  Yet,  one  and  all,  they  had  a  poor  time  of 
it  in  this  world,  from  a  eudaemonistic  point  of  view.  "  So 
persecuted  they  the  prophets."  What  does  it  all  mean  ? 
that  is  the  question  they  handed  on  to  Christ  for  answer. 

6.  It  is  by  their  passion  for  righteousness,  and  theii 
invincible  faith  in  a  righteous  Euler  of  the  world,  that  the 
prophets  are  a  living  witness  to  the  reality  of  a  divine 
revelation  given  to  Israel ;  by  these,  and  by  their  magnifi- 
cent optimism,  to  be  considered  in  the  next  chapter.  The 
apologetic  value  of  Hebrew  prophecy  does  not  lie  in 
predictions  of  future  events  capable  of  being  used  as 
miraculous  buttresses  to  the  Christian  faith.  Prediction  is 
a  feature  of  prophecy,  could  not  fail  to  be ;  for  what  could 
men  who  with  their  whole  soul  believed  in  a  moral  order 
of  the  world  do  but  declare  that  if  sin  was  persisted  in 
punishment  would  certainly  follow  ?  But  prediction  is, 
nevertheless,  a  subordinate  feature  of  prophecy,  and  the 
prophets  did  not  predict  in  order  to  supply  apologists  with 
arguments  in  support  of  a  supernatural  revelation.  The 
prophets  were  before  all  things  inspired  witnesses  to  the 
reality  of  a  divine  kingdom.  They  were  witnesses  to  their 
own  time,  each  man  speaking  to  his  own  generation,  in 
language  suggested  by,  and  suitable  to,  the  existing  circum- 
stances. The  value  of  their  witness  lies  in  its  perfect 
adaptation  to  the  times.  They  did  not  speak  before  their 
message  was  needed,  before  their  heart  was  made  to  bum 
by  the  moral  situation  to  which  they  addressed  themselves ; 
and  hence  they  spoke  with  freshness,  with  fervour,  and 
with  poetic  felicity.  We  have,  therefore,  no  interest  in 
taking  the  conservative  side  on  such  a  question  as  that 
relating  to  t-he  date  and  authorship  of  the  sefiond  part  of 


FSOPHBTIS^  243 

the  book  of  Isaiah.  Our  interest  lies  rather  in  the  opposite 
direction.  These  marvellous  utterances  have  far  more 
value  when  viewed  as  proceeding  from  an  unknown 
prophet  of  the  exile  speaking  to  his  fellow-captives  by  the 
rivers  of  Babylon  of  the  mercies  of  God  in  store  for  Israel. 
"We  lose,  doubtless,  a  miracle  of  foresight  in  the  form  of  a 
prediction  of  deliverance  through  Cyrus,  but  we  gain  a 
moral  miracle  of  faith  and  hope  amid  circumstances 
tempting  to  despair.  Isaiah  of  Jerusalem  foretelling  the 
advent  of  Cyrus  two  centuries  or  thereby  before  the  time 
would  be  a  wonderful  vaticinator  ;  but  an  unknown  prophet 
of  the  exile  speaking  comfortably  to  Jerusalem  in  her  desola- 
tion is  a  moral  hero,  who,  by  the  strength  of  his  spirit,  the 
depth  of  his  sympathy,  and  the  greatness  of  his  expecta- 
tion is  a  convincing  proof  that  better  days  are  in  store  for 
Israel,  and  for  the  world.  His  value  lies  in  what  he  is, 
in  what  God  by  His  illuminating  Spirit  enables  him  to  be, 
not  in  what  he  says  about  Cyrus  or  anybody  else. 

The  impression  made  by  the  oracles  of  Hebrew  prophets 
as  assertors  of  the  moral  government  of  God,  is  not 
weakened  by  comparison  with  the  utterances  of  kindred 
spirits  among  other  peoples,  such  as  the  Persians,  the 
Chinese,  and  the  Greeks.  Zarathustra  taught  his  country- 
men to  believe  in  a  kingdom  of  righteousness,  presided 
over  by  the  wise  spirit,  Ahura-Mazda,  whom  it  was  the 
highest  duty  and  blessedness  of  men  to  serve.  The 
Chinese  book  of  Odes  contains  many  poems  teaching  the 
reality  of  a  divine  government,  and  not  a  few  dealing  with 
the  dark,  mysterious  side  of  Providence  in  a  manner  which 
reminds  one  of  those  passages  in  Old  Testament  literature, 
wherein  prophets  and  psalmists  wrestle  with  doubts  as  to 
the  justice  of  God,  occasioned  by  the  prosperity  of  the 
wicked  and  the  evil  lot  of  good  men.  The  extant  writings 
of  the  Greek  tragedians  abound  in  powerful  affirmations  of 
n  all-pervasive  moral  order.  Tn  all  three  cases  there  is 
enough  light  to  show  that  God  had  not  left  Himself  with- 
out a  witness  to  His  righteousness.      But  compared  with 


'244  APOLOGETICS. 

the   light  which  shDne  in   Israel,  that  vouchsated  to  the 

three  peoples  named  in  the  wisest  sayings  of  their  sages 
is  dim.  To  save  the  goodness  of  Ahura-Mazda,  Zarathustra 
found  it  necessary  to  invent  an  anti-god,  Augri-mainyus, 
who  should  be  responsible  for  all  the  evil  in  the  world. 
There  is  no  dualism  in  Hebrew  prophecy  ;  in  the  unknown 
prophet  of  the  exile  there  is  an  express  repudiation  of  it, 
as  if  with  conscious  reference  to  the  creed  of  the  Persians : 
"  I  form  the  light,  and  create  darkness ;  I  make  peace,  and 
create  evil."  *  The  Chinese  poets  do  their  best  to  vindicate 
the  divine  character  against  all  suspicions  of  unrighteous- 
ness or  indifference,  arising  out  of  untoward  appearances. 
But  they  come  far  short  of  the  Hebrew  prophets,  both  in 
their  perception  of  the  mysteriousness  of  the  problem  and 
in  their  solution.  In  their  easy,  shallow  theodicy  they 
resemble  Job's  friends,  who  thought  the  clearing  of  God's 
character  a  very  simple  affair,  rather  than  Job  himself, 
who  was  profoundly  conscious  that  God's  way  was  in  the 
sea.     The  following  stanza  may  serve  as  a  sample : — * 

"How  great  is  God,  who  ruleth  men  below  I 

In  awful  terrors  now  arrayed. 
His  dealings  seem  a  recklessness  to  show, 

From  which  we,  shuddering,  shrink  dismayed- 
But  men  at  first  from  Heaven  their  being  drew. 

With  nature  liable  to  change. 
All  hearts  in  infancy  are  good  and  true, 

But  time  and  things  those  hearts  derange." 

Gkxi  being  thus  cleared,  the  poet  goes  on  to  lay  the 
blame  of  existing  calamity  on  the  king  and  his  ministers. 
In  another  poem  a  famine  is  represented  as  a  judgment  on 
the  king  for  employing  worthless  characters  as  ministers :  • 

*'  'Twas  merit  once  that  riches  gained  ; 
The  case  how  different  now. 
Troubles  through  all  our  time  have  reigned. 
And  greater  still  they  grow 

»  lea.  xIt.  7. 

"  Taken  from  the  She-King  ;  or.   The  Book  of  Poetry,  translated  ints 
English  by  Dr.  Legge.      Vide  Chinese  Classics,  iii.  321. 
» She-King,  p.  348>. 


PROPHETIC   OPTIMISM.  246 

Like  grain  nnhnlled,  those  men  in  place, 
Like  fine  rice  those  who  find  no  grao*. 

Ye  villains  of  yourselves  retire, 
Why  thus  prolong  my  grief  and  ire." 

^schylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides  grandly  proclaimed 
the  doctrine  of  Nemesis,  teaching  their  countrymen  in  their 
own  dialect  that  God  resisteth  the  proud,  and  giveth  grace 
unto  the  lowly.*  But  in  the  background  of  their  picture 
of  human  life  is  the  dark  figure  of  fate,  a  blind  force 
exercising  sway  over  both  gods  and  men,  without  regard  to 
character  or  moral  interests.  This  pagan  conception  has 
nothing  answering  to  it  in  Hebrew  prophecy. 


CHAPTER  VL 

PEOPHETIO  OPTIMISM. 

LrrERATURE. — Principal  Fairbaim  (of  Glasgow),  Prophecy  ; 
Matthew  Arnold,  Literature  and  Dogma;  Adeney,  The 
Hebrew  Utopia  ;  Orelli,  Die  AUtestamentliche  Weissagung  von 
der  Vollendung  des  Gottesreichs  (translated  by  T.  &  T.  Clark) ; 
Riehm,  Die  MessianiscTie  Weissagung,  2nd  ed.  (translated); 
Briggs,  Messianic  Prophecy ;  Delitzsch,  MessianiscTie  Weissa- 
gungen  in  Geschichtlichen  Folge  (translated).  Vide  also 
Duhm's  work;  and  Oehler,  Die  Theologie  det  ATa.;  and 
Schultz,  Alttest.  Theol. 

Not  less  conspicuous  in  the  character  of  the  prophets 
than  their  passion  for  righteousness  is  the  buoyant  hope- 
fulness with  which  they  contemplate  the  future.  Their 
writings  are  pervaded  by  the  spirit  of  optimism.  They 
believe,  in  spite  of  all  present  appearances  to  the  contrary, 
that  great  good  is  in  store  for  Israel  and  the  world. 

Either    of  these    characteristics    by  itself  would   have 

*  English  readers  may  easily  form  a  good  general  idea  of  the  moral  and 
religions  attitude  of  the  Greek  tragedians  by  perusing  Professor  D'Aroy 
Thomson's  Salt*  AUici,  in  which  extracts  in  Qreek  are  giTen  <m  one  pafs 
and  English  translations  on  the  page  oppoaita 


246  AP0L0GETIC8. 

snfiSced  to  make  the  prophets  outstanding  men  in  th« 
history  of  the  human  race.  The  passion  for  righteousness 
and  the  passion  of  hope  are  so  far  from  being  common, 
that  those  in  whom  either  of  them  appears  in  a  high 
degree  must  ever  take  rank  among  the  world's  remarkable 
men.  But  it  is  the  combination  of  the  two  that  makes 
the  figure  of  the  Hebrew  prophet  unique.  The  surprise  is 
that  a  man  of  such  moral  intensity,  so  severe  a  critic  of 
his  time,  should  also  be  optimistic  in  his  view  of  the 
future.  It  comes  so  natural  to  the  moral  critic  to  be 
gloomy  and  pessimistic  that  we  wonder  when  we  observe 
that  these  men  who  made  the  most  exacting  demands  from 
their  contemporaries,  and  pronounced  on  them  the  most 
unsparing  condemnation  for  failing  to  comply  therewith,  give 
the  most  glowing,  enthusiastic  pictures  to  be  met  with  in  the 
world's  literature  of  a  golden  age  to  come,  when  the  loftiest 
ideals  of  goodness  and  happiness  should  be  fully  realised. 

If  these  two  sides  of  the  prophetic  character  appear 
incongruous,  not  less  so  appear  the  objects  to  which  the 
two  rul'  g  passions  were  directed.  The  passion  for  right- 
eousne  revealed  to  the  prophet's  eye  an  evil  present ;  the 
passion  of  hope  opened  up  to  his  view  a  perfect  future. 
The  two  things  are  not  in  one  line,  tliey  seem  antagonistic, 
they  present  an  apparently  hopeless  antinomy.  If  genera- 
tion after  generation  the  present  be  always  evil,  wh"at 
reason  is  there  to  expect  that  any  coming  generation  will 
be  much  better,  not  to  say  really  good  ?  Have  we  not 
here  two  irreconcilable  products  of  prophetic  thought,  influ- 
enced by  two  contrary  moods  strangely  meeting  together 
in  minds  of  rare  type  ?  It  is  no  small  part  of  the  im- 
perishable merit  of  the  prophets  that  they  made  no  attempt 
to  conceal  the  antinomy.  There  the  two  things  stand  side 
by  side  in  their  writings:  black  pictures  of  moral  short- 
coming, bright  pictures  of  the  future  character  of  the  same 
people.  "  Ah,  sinful  nation — a  people  laden  with  iniquity." 
"Thy  people  also  shall  be  all  righteous."  It  is  a  com- 
panion antinomy  to  the  one  pointed  out  in  the  last  chapter, 


PROPHETIC  OPTIMISM.  247 

that,  viz.  between  the  ideal  of  God's  moral  government  and 
the  moral  confusions  of  real  life.  The  prophets  had  at 
their  command  no  philosophy  offering  a  complete  solution 
in  either  case.  They  simply  acknowledged  frankly  both 
terms  of  the  antinomy,  and  for  the  rest  walked  by  faith. 
Not  that  hints  of  solution  did  not  suggest  themselves. 
Men  could  not  feel,  as  the  prophets  did,  the  heavy  pressure 
of  the  contradiction  without  seeking,  and  to  a  certain 
extent  finding,  a  way  of  escape.  A  most  instructive 
instance  of  light  springing  out  of  collision,  like  a  spark 
struck  by  a  flint  out  of  steel,  is  supplied  in  Jeremiah's 
oracle  of  the  New  Covenant.  The  prophet  contemplates 
the  return  of  the  exiles  to  their  own  land,  and  their  dwell- 
ing there  in  righteousness  and  peace.  But  the  thought 
occurs  to  him :  to  what  purpose  return  to  Judaea  if  the  old 
weary  round  of  transgression  is  to  be  repeated,  and  what 
hope  does  the  past  history  of  Israel  give  of  anything 
better?  How  bridge  over  the  gulf  between  the  bygone 
centuries  of  disobedience  and  the  hoped-for  future  of 
fidelity  to  God  ?  After  long  brooding,  the  answer  comes 
at  last  in  the  visions  of  the  night.  "What  if  the  law 
written  on  stone  tablets  were  written  on  the  heart  ?  No 
wonder  the  prophet,  on  awaking  in  the  morning,  after  the 
great  revelation,  found  that  his  sleep  had  been  sweet. 

Let  us  consider  the  source  of  prophetic  optimism,  the 
expression  of  it,  and  its  valiie. 

1.  The  source  was  not  the  mere  temperament  or  disposi- 
tion of  the  prophet  The  prophet  as  such  is  not  charac- 
teristically hopeful ;  his  temptation  rather  is  to  be  querulous, 
morose,  gloomy,  desponding.  Taking  moral  intensity  to  be 
the  fundamental  feature  in  the  prophetic  character,  the 
tendency  unquestionably  is  to  be  so  overwhelmed  with  a 
sense  of  the  evil  of  the  present  as  to  be  unable  to  hope  for 
improvement.  The  prophet's  eye  is  apt  to  descry  on 
the  horizon  of  the  future  only  judgment.  The  Baptist's 
preaching  was  all  of  the  coming  wrath,  the  hewing  axe,  the 
winnowing  fan,  the  unquenchable  fire. 


248  APOLOGETICS. 

Shall  we  say  then  that  the  bright  future  was  an  ideal 
which  the  prophet  created  as  a  solace  to  relieve  the  gloom 
of  the  present  ?  Hardly.  A  modern  poet  might  write  a 
bright  poem  to  charm  away  melancholy,  conscious  that  the 
verses  he  indited  were  only  an  artistic  creation,  with  no 
pretensions  to  truth.  But  a  Hebrew  prophet  was  not  a 
mere  poet  or  sentimental  dreamer :  he  was  a  man  of  serious 
spirit  and  practical  mind,  in  dead  earnest  in  all  he  said  and 
did.  If  his  prophecies  of  the  future  were  poetic  creations, 
they  were  creations  in  which  he  believed  with  all  his  heart. 
As  he  conceived  the  future,  so  he  believed  it  would  be. 

To  account  for  the  hopefulness  of  the  prophet  we  must 
fall  back  on  his  religious  faith.  It  arose  directly  and 
immediately  out  of  his  faith  in  the  election  of  Israel  If 
God  chose  Israel  for  a  certain  purpose,  then  that  purpose 
must  stand :  that  was  self-evident,  axiomatically  certain,  to 
him.  With  Paul  he  believed  that  the  gifts  and  calling  of 
God  are  without  repentance.  God's  purpose  in  Israel's 
election  might  be  variously  conceived,  and  according  to 
the  conception  would  be  the  idea  formed  of  the  eventual 
fulfilment.  If  the  purpose  was  to  make  Israel  a  holy 
state,  then  the  future  would  present  itself  as  that  of  a 
nation  doing  righteousness.  If  the  purpose  was  to  use 
Israel  as  a  vehicle  for  conveying  to  the  world  the  true 
religion,  then  the  vision  of  the  future  might  not  involve 
prosperity  for  the  chosen  people,  or  even  the  preservation  of 
her  existence ;  but  it  would  certainly  exhibit  to  the  seer's 
eye  a  world  filled  with  the  knowledge  of  the  true  God.  The 
one  thing  sure  was  that  the  divine  aim  would  be  realised. 

But  this  does  not  go  to  the  root  of  the  matter.  Elec- 
tion is  an  act  of  wilL  The  great  question  is.  What  is  the 
character  of  the  electing  will  ?  In  other  words,  the  ulti- 
mate source  of  prophetic  optimism  must  be  found  in  the 
prophetic  idea  of  God. 

Now,  the  great  broad  fact  here  is  that  in  the  prophetic 
conception  of  the  divine  character  mercy,  grace  occupies  a 
▼exy  prominent  place.     God  is  nowhere  conceived  of  as 


PROPHETIC   OPTIMISM.  249 

sustaining  a  merely  legal  relation  to  men,  making  certain 
demands  on  them  which  it  lies  with  them  to  comply  with, 
and  administering  rewards  and  punishments  according  as 
His  behests  are  obeyed  or  disobeyed.  The  "  covenant  of 
works  "  is  a  theological  abstraction  representing  an  element 
in  God's  relations  with  men,  but  not  a  distinct  substantive 
reality.  At  no  crisis  of  human  history,  whether  in  the 
garden  of  Eden  or  out  of  it,  was  the  element  of  grace, 
according  to  the  biblical  representation,  wanting.  God 
appears  evermore  as  more  than  a  moral  Governor,  even  as 
a  Redeemer,  a  Saviour;  not  only  as  an  objective  Power 
working  on  the  side  of  righteousness,  but  as  a  gracious 
Power  helping  men  to  be  righteous.  The  gracious  aspect 
of  the  divine  character  is  set  in  the  forefront  even  of  the 
Decalogue,  the  preface  of  which  recalls  to  remembrance 
the  deliverance  from  bondage.  In  that  great  event  God's 
grace  showed  itself  in  outward  providence  working  for 
Israel's  redemption.  Still  therein  God  appears  doing  for 
Israel  what  she  could  not  do  for  herself,  in  "love  and 
pity "  redeeming  a  helpless,  enslaved  race  from  a  state  of 
bondage;  not  rewarding  for  work  done,  but  benignantly 
conferring  benefit  unmerited.  In  the  same  external,  pro- 
vidential sense  God  showed  His  grace  to  Israel  all  through 
her  long  history :  as  when  He  saved  Jerusalem  from  Sen- 
nacherib's army,  and  brought  the  exiles  back  from  Babylon. 
But  divine  grace  is  not  conceived  of  as  limited  to  the 
external  sphera  It  is  thought  of  also,  especially  in  the 
later  prophets,  as  a  beneficent  power  working  within  men, 
enabling  them  to  fulfil  the  divine  will  Thus  viewed,  God 
is  not  merely  a  Being  who  sets  before  men  a  lofty  moral 
ideal,  but  One  who  helps  them  to  realise  it ;  not  simply 
a  transcendent  Majesty  who  says  "thou  shalt"  under 
penalties,  but  an  immanent  spirit,  conveying  inspiration 
and  strength  to  the  souL  "  The  ideal  without  is  also  the 
power  within." '  This  is  the  thought  underlying  Jeremiah's 
great  prophecy  of  the  law  written  on  the  heart 

*  JoiMi,  Browning  tu  a  Philotophioal  and  Rtligiou*  Ttmektr,  p.  N6w 


260  APOLOGETICS. 

^d's  grace  in  biblical  representations  works  ordinarily 
within  the  sphere  of  the  covenant  and  for  the  benefit  of  the 
elect  people.  But  it  is  not  restricted  to  Israel,  as  if  Jehovah, 
while  loving,  kind,  and  good  to  Israel,  her  Husband,  Father, 
Eedeemer,  were  utterly  regardless  of  the  rest  of  mankind. 
A  god  so  conceived  would  be  only  a  national  god,  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  was  not  the  kind  of  deity  the  prophets 
believed  in.  No  barbaric  divinity  is  Jehovah,  gracious  to 
His  favoured  race,  ferocious  towards  all  other  races ;  but 
one  who  is  good  to  all,  and  whose  tender  mercies  are  over 
all  His  works.^  Him  all  lands  may  be  invited  to  serve 
with  gladness,  because  He  is  good,  and  His  mercy  is  ever 
lasting.^  To  Him  all  the  ends  of  the  earth  are  bid  look 
for  salvation,  as  the  one  God  over  all,  and  alike  gracious  to 
all.* 

With  such  an  idea  of  God,  prophetic  optimism  becomes 
easily  intelligible.  There  is  no  limit  to  what  may  be 
expected  from  Almighty  Love:  "With  Him  is  plenteous 
redemption,"  *  in  all  senses,  and  in  all  spheres,  external  or 
internal,  and  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  The  things  con- 
nected with  sin  may  be  too  strong  for  us  to  cope  with,  but 
they  are  not  too  strong  for  God.*  He  can  pardon  the 
most  aggravated  guilt,  subdue  the  power  of  evil  habit, 
extricate  from  the  chains  of  punitive  consequences.  The 
prophets  speak  as  men  who  believed  this  with  all  their 
hearts,  and  cherished  boundless  expectations  from  God's 
beneficent  will.  The  style  in  which  they  express  them- 
selves on  this  theme  is  magnificent.  Listen  to  Micah: 
"  Who  is  a  God  like  unto  Thee,  that  pardoneth  iniquity, 
and  passeth  by  the  transgression  of  the  remnant  of  His 
heritage  ?  He  retaineth  not  His  anger  for  ever,  because  He 
delighteth  in  mercy.  He  will  turn  again,  He  will  have 
compassion  upon  us ;  He  will  subdue  our  iniquities ;  and 
Thou  will  cast  all  their  sins  into  the  depths  of  the  sea."* 
Or  to  Hosea :  "  I  will  heal  their  backsliding,  I  will  loYa 

1  Ps,  ozIy.  9.  *  Ps.  «.  S.  '  Iia.  xlr.  82. 

*  Pb.  exxx.  7.  •  Pa.  Ixv.  IL  •  Mieah  riL  18,  19. 


FIOFHETIO  OPTIMISM.  261 

them  freely ;  I  will  be  as  the  dew  unto  Israel :  he  shall 
grow  as  the  lily,  and  cast  forth  his  roots  as  Lebanon.*** 
God  a  Physician,  a  magnanimous  Friend,  who  overcomes  evil 
with  good,  a  springtide  of  hope  and  beauty  and  shooting 
life :  what  may  not  be  expected  from  Him  for  Israel  and 
for  the  world  ? 

It  is  by  keeping  in  mind  the  idea  of  God  cherished  by 
the  prophets  that  we  can  understand  not  merely  why  they 
hoped  so  greatly,  but  why  hope  characterises  them  so 
markedly  in  contrast  to  the  sages  of  pagan  peoples.  For 
the  heathen  poet  the  golden  age  lies  in  the  past ;  for  the 
Hebrew  prophet  it  lies  in  the  future.  "Whence  this 
difference  ?  Its  ultimate  source  is  diversity  in  their 
respective  conceptions  of  God.  The  prophet  believed,  as 
no  heathen  poet  or  philosopher  ever  did,  in  the  goodness 
of  God.  He  discovered  traces  of  that  goodness  in  the 
whole  history  of  his  own  people,  and  from  the  favour 
shown  to  her  in  the  past  inferred  for  her  a  great  future 
destiny.  More  and  more  he  opened  his  mind  to  the 
thought  that  from  the  same  divine  goodness  would  flow 
unimaginable  benefit  to  the  whole  human  race:  that  the 
latter  days  would  give  birth  to  a  new  heavens  and  a  new 
earth  wherein  should  dwell  righteousness.  For  lack  of 
this  bright,  inspiring  faith  in  a  good  God  heathen  sages 
were  not  able  to  be  so  hopeful  Their  measure  of  the 
possible  was  the  actual,  and  the  actual  is  so  full  of  con- 
fusion, uncertainty,  and  chance,  that  pessimism  for  one 
who  looks  not  higher  seems  inevitable. 

2.  The  hope  of  Hebrew  prophecy  found  very  varied 
expression.  An  exhaustive  account  of  the  diverse  forms 
under  which  the  future  good  is  presented  is  not  here  aimed 
at;  it  will  suffice  to  indicate  one  or  two  of  the  leading 
types.  The  ideal  is  sometimes  political.  The  picture 
presented  is  that  of  a  nation  delivered  from  the  power  of 
its  foes,  enjoying  material  prosperity  under  a  just,  wise 
government,  and  minded  to  shun  the  offences  which  had 
^  Hos.  ziv.  4,  fi. 


252  APOLOGETICS. 

brought  upon  it  the  calamities  from  which  it  is  now  happily 
rid.  Several  of  the  earlier  prophetic  books  offer  a  tableau 
of  this  kind.  Thus  at  the  close  of  the  book  of  Amos  we 
read: 

"  In  that  day  will  I  raise  up  the  tabernacle  of  David  that 
is  fallen,  and  close  up  the  breaches  thereof ;  and  I  will  raise 
up  his  ruins,  and  I  will  build  it  as  in  the  days  of  old :  that 
they  may  possess  the  remnant  of  Edom,  and  of  all  the 
heathen,  which  are  called  by  my  name,  saith  the  Lord  that 
doeth  this.  Behold,  the  days  come,  saith  the  Lord,  that  the 
plowman  shall  overtake  the  reaper,  and  the  treader  of  grapes 
him  that  soweth  seed ;  and  the  mountains  shall  drop  sweet 
wine,  and  all  the  hills  shall  melt.  And  I  will  bring  again 
the  captivity  of  my  people  of  Israel,  and  they  shall  build 
the  waste  cities,  and  inhabit  them ;  and  they  shall  plant 
vineyards,  and  drink  the  wine  thereoip.  They  shall  also  make 
gardens,  and  eat  the  fruit  of  them ;  and  I  will  plant  them 
upon  their  land,  and  they  shall  no  more  be  pulled  up  out  of 
their  land  which  I  have  given  them."  * 

The  prophet,  it  will  be  observed,  goes  back  for  his  ideal 
state  of  national  felicity  to  the  time  of  David.  Israel,  as 
it  was  then,  with  as  good  a  king,  with  as  much  internal 
concord,  and  with  similar  outward  wellbeing,  and  fearing 
no  foe :  that  will  suffice  for  an  ideal  of  the  future  good. 
In  some  of  the  prophetic  programmes  of  this  type  much 
stress  is  laid  upon  the  king  who  is  to  reign  in  the  good 
time  coming,  as  if  given  a  king  of  the  right  stamp  all  must 
go  well  In  such  prophecies  the  character  of  the  king  is 
highly  idealised.  Thus  Isaiah  describes  the  model  king  as 
one  filled  with  the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  understanding  and 
the  fear  of  God,  who  shall  administer  justice  with  dis- 
crimination and  impartiality,  and  shall  show  himself  the 
friend  of  the  poor  and  the  stern  foe  of  all  iniquity.*  He 
represents  him  as  bearing,  as  the  vicegerent  of  Grod,  divine 
titles:  "Wonderful,  Counsellor,  Mighty  God,  Everlasting 
Father,  Prince  of  Peace."  •  It  is  to  such  prophecies  of  an 
ideal  king  that  the  title  "  Messianic  "  properly  applies. 
1  Amoa  iz.  11-15.  •  Im.  zL  1^.  >  In.  ix.  & 


r 


PROPHETIC   OPTIMISM.  253 

Isaiah's  conception  of  the  good  time  coming  helongs  to 
the  political  typa  His  ideal  is  a  nation  well  governed,  and 
enjoying  in  rich  measure  the  blessings  of  abundance  and 
peace.  It  is  an  ideal  such  as  a  wise,  high-minded  states- 
man might  project,  and  which  might  conceivably  be 
realised  under  the  natural  conditions  of  human  society. 
To  later  prophets  such  an  ideal  no  longer  appeared  attain- 
able, or,  if  attained,  the  best  possible ;  and  accordingly  in 
their  writings  the  summum  honum  undergoes  perceptible 
transformation.  The  political  gives  place  to  the  ethical, 
a  reformed  state  to  a  regenerated  people.  So  in  Jere- 
miah's famcus  oracle  of  the  new  covenant  To  this  pro- 
phet Isaiah's  ideal,  even  if  attained,  seemed  a  comparatively 
poor  thing.  Of  what  great  avail  were  good  government 
and  plenty  to  eat,  if  the  people  were  not  individually 
righteous  ?  The  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished 
were  a  people  with  God's  law  written  on  their  heart. 
But  how  is  this  end  to  be  reached  ?  It  seems  something 
supernatural,  not  attainable  under  ordinary  conditiona  So 
Jeremiah  felt ;  hence  his  remarkable  idea  of  a  new  cove- 
nant. He  despaired  of  obtaining  any  result  of  great  and 
permanent  value  under  the  original  Mosaic  covenant  or 
constitution.  Herein  he  differed  from  his  brother-prophet 
Isaiah.  Isaiah  stood  on  the  old  covenant,  and  aimed  at 
a  state  in  a  sound  healthy  condition,  such  as  any  wise 
statesman  might  desire.  Jeremiah  gave  the  old  covenant 
up  as  hopeless.  He  demanded,  not  reform,  but  revolution, 
a  new  constitution  for  a  new  people  consisting  of  men  and 
women  whose  hearts  were  right  with  God.  He  still  con- 
ceives of  regenerated  Israel  as  a  nation,  and,  like  the  older 
prophets,  attaches  great  importance  to  the  person  of  the 
king.  "  Behold,  the  days  come,  saith  the  Lord,  that  I  will 
raise  unto  David  a  righteous  Branch,  and  a  King  shall  reign 
and  prosper,  and  shall  execute  justice  in  the  earth.  In  His 
days  Judah  shaU  be  saved,  and  Israel  shall  dwell  safely."* 
And,  like  Isaiah,  he  invests  the  king  with  divine  titles. 
>  Jer.  zzUL  6,  i. 


254  APOLOOBTIOS. 

But  there  is  a  noteworthy  change  in  the  character  of  4m 

attributions.  Isaiah's  titles  are  titles  of  majesty  md 
dignity;  with  Jeremiah  the  ethical  comes  to  the  front 
"This  is  the  name  whereby  He  shall  be  called,  the  Lord 
our  righteoumess."  ^  It  is  not  legitimate  exegesis  to  extract 
from  this  name,  as  Jeremiah  used  it,  the  Pauline  system  of 
theology ;  but  it  is  legitimate  to  remark  that  the  name  is 
in  sympathy  with  that  prophet's  great  thought :  the  law 
written  on  the  heart.  If  Jehovah  is  to  write  His  law  on 
regenerated  Israel's  heart,  then  He  is  the  source  of  Israel's 
righteousness,  and  the  king  who  reigns  over  regenerated 
Israel  may  well  bear  a  name  that  bears  witness  to  this 
truth. 

Ezekiel  seems  to  be  in  sympathy  with  Jeremiah  in  hia 
conception  of  the  good  in  store  for  Israel.  He  represents 
Jehovah  as  making  this  promise  to  His  people  returned 
from  captivity :  "  A  new  heart  also  will  I  give  you,  and  a 
new  spirit  will  I  put  within  you :  and  I  will  take  away  the 
stony  heart  out  of  your  flesh,  and  I  wUl  give  you  an  heart 
of  flesh."  *  It  has,  indeed,  been  maintained  that  the  re- 
generation he  speaks  of  is  not  moral,  but  ritual,  and  that 
his  whole  tendency  leads  on  to  Talmudism.'  That  is  a 
question  which  cannot  here  be  discussed.  It  must  certainly 
be  admitted  that  the  spirit  of  Ezekiel  is  in  many  respects 
different  from  that  of  Jeremiah,  and  that  he  is  a  priest 
quite  as  much,  as  he  is  a  prophet.*  Nevertheless,  it 
remains  true  that  there  is  essential  agreement  between  the 
two  prophets  in  their  point  of  view.  Both  desiderate 
regeneration  as  necessary  to  the  realisation  of  the  ideal 
If  they  differ,  it  is  £is  to  the  means  of  regeneration,  or  as 
to  the  kind  of  laws  to  be  written  on  the  heart. 

>  Jer.  xziii.  6.  '  £z«k.  zxzri.  M. 

»  Duhm,  DU  Theologie  der  Propfteten,  pp.  258,  263. 

*  Jeremiah  also  was  a  priest  officially,  but  not  in  spirit.  Dannestetet 
truly  says:  "The  priest  in  him  was  the  servant  and  instrument  of  the 
prophet ;  in  him,  as  in  Isaiah,  it  is  the  prophet  that  dominates,  that  is  t« 
■ay,  the  reformer  of  the  moral  life,  of  the  social  life,  of  the  political  life."— 
Le»  Proph6U$  tPIartul,  p.  69. 


PROPHETIC   OPTIMISM.  255 

In  the  oracles  of  the  great  prophet  of  the  exile  we  meet 
with  an  ideal  of  a  third  type,  which  may  be  distinguished 
as  the  religious.  Here  the  model  king  disappears  from 
view,  and  with  him  the  nation,  and  Israel  becomes  a 
prophet  or  missionary  fulfilling  the  high  vocation  of  teach- 
ing the  nations  the  true  religion.  "  I  will  also  give  Thee 
for  a  light  to  the  Gentiles,  that  Thou  mayest  be  my  salva- 
tion unto  the  end  of  the  earth."  *  Salvation  consists  in  the 
knowledge  of  the  true  God,  and  Israel's  honourable  function 
is  to  be  to  communicate  that  knowledge  as  the  inspired 
apostle  of  the  faith.  The  golden  age  shall  have  come,  and 
the  ideal  been  realised,  when  the  earth  is  filled  with  the 
knowledge  of  God.  Under  this  view  the  highest  good  is  a 
boon,  not  for  the  elect  race  merely,  but  for  the  world :  her 
peculiar  reward  is  the  honour  of  being  the  instrument  for 
achieving  so  great  a  result.  "  It  is  a  light  thing  that  Thou 
shouldest  be  my  servant  to  raise  up  the  tribes  of  Jacob, 
and  to  restore  the  preserved  of  Israel :  I  will  also  give 
Thee  for  a  light  to  the  Gentiles."  Israel  becomes  great 
among  the  nations  by  becoming  a  servant  to  the  nations  in 
their  highest  interests,  by  acting  as  their  religious  teacher. 
Her  glory  is  that  she  gives  to  the  world  the  true  idea  of 
God. 

High  vocations  bring  not  only  renown  but  tribulations. 
The  missionary  of  the  true  God  must  be  a  great  sufferer. 
**  Who  hath  believed  our  report  ?  and  to  whom  is  the  arm 
of  the  Lord  revealed  ? "  '  "  He  is  despised  and  rejected  of 
men;  a  man  of  sorrows,  and  acquainted  with  grief."'  This 
is  the  darkest  phase  in  the  sombre  picture  of  human  life, 
supplying  a  choice  theme  for  the  pessimist — the  fact  that 
those  who  have  the  faculty  and  the  will  to  do  the  world 
most  good  usually  receive  the  worst  treatment  at  the  world's 
hands.  But  there  is  another  side  to  the  picture,  as  bright 
as  the  other  is  dark.  The  suffering  of  the  wise  and  the 
good  is  never  in  vain :  it  benefits  the  very  men  who  are 
the  cause  of  the  suffering.  "  By  His  knowledge  shall  mj 
*  Ihl  zUz.  6.  ■  Isa.  liiL  1.  *  Lsa.  liiL  8. 


256  AP0L0GBTIC8. 

righteous  servant  justify  many ;  for  He  shall  bear  theii 
iniquities."  *  Here  is  the  answer  to  the  riddle  propounded 
in  the  book  of  Job :  why  do  the  righteous  suffer  ?  Here 
the  optimism  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  reaches  its  culmina- 
tion and  its  vindication.  That  optimism  does  not  consist 
in  shutting  the  eyes  to  the  evU  that  is  in  the  world.  On 
the  contrary,  it  knows  how  to  take  that  evil  into  the  ideal 
as  one  of  its  constitutive  elements,  and  transmute  it  into 
the  highest  good.  The  wise  and  the  good  suffer  because 
the  world  does  not  know  them,  and  by  their  patience  they 
conquer  their  foes,  and  "  divide  the  spoil  with  the  strong." 
The  fifty-third  chapter  of  Isaiah  is  the  last  and  highest 
word  of  Hebrew  prophecy  concerning  the  mmmum  honum. 
It  sets  forth  the  ideal  as  power  reached  through  weakness, 
honour  through  shame,  healing  through  pain,  righteousness 
through  wrong ;  reached  not  merely  for  the  one  who  endures 
the  weakness,  the  shame,  the  pain,  and  the  wrong,  but 
through  him  for  the  many. 

3.  When  we  inquire  what  is  the  value  of  prophetic 
optimism,  we  mean  how  far  does  it  possess  objective  and 
permanent  significance.  That  it  possessed  subjective  value 
for  the  prophets  themselves  is  a  matter  of  course.  It 
consoled  them  amidst  the  tribulations  and  calamities  and 
iniquities  of  the  present ;  it  made  life  worth  living ;  it  gave 
the  weary  spirit  the  wings  of  a  dove,  on  which  it  could  Ifly 
away  to  a  dream-world  and  be  at  rest  But  what  amount 
of  truth  is  in  these  prophetic  forecasts  of  the  future,  to 
what  extent  haa  history  realised  prophetic  ideals  ? 

Now  it  is  a  commonplace  in  the  interpretation  of  pro- 
phecy that  all  prophecies  have  not  been  fulfilled,  and  that 
some  of  them,  in  the  precise  form  in  which  they  are  given, 
never  will  or  can  be  fulfilled.  The  world  has  never  yet 
seen  Isaiah's  model  state,  and  there  is  little  likelihood  that 
it  ever  will  His  conception  of  a  great  world-monarchy, 
embracing  Egypt,  Assyria,  and  Palestine,  is  now  simply  a 
monument  to  his  geniua  Jeremiah's  noble  thought  of  a 
1  Im.  liiL  11. 


PROPHETIC   OPTIMISM.  257 

regenerated  Israel  is  also  destined  to  remain  an  anrealised 

ideaL  The  model  king  of  Davidic  type  never  came. 
There  were  some  good  kings,  such  as  Hezekiah  and  Josiah^ 
but  they  came  far  short  of  the  prophetic  ideal,  and  most  of 
the  kings  were  such  as  would  break  a  prophet's  heart. 
But  it  does  not  follow  that  prophetic  ideals  were  idle 
dreams  containing  not  even  a  kernel  of  truth. 

In  the  first  place,  if  there  was  any  reality  in  the  election 
of  Israel,  then  the  thought  which  underlies  all  Messianic 
prophecy,  so-called,  must  be  true,  viz.  that  a  great  good  is 
coming.  When  Jehovah  chose  Israel,  He  had  a  purpose  in 
view  which  must  be  fulfilled,  He  commenced  a  process 
which  must  reach  its  consummation,  He  planted  a  vine 
which  must  bear  its  fruit  If  no  good  is  coming,  then  God's 
election  of  Israel  is  a  failure,  or  rather  it  never  took  place ; 
it  is  simply  a  notion  of  the  Hebrew  people  having  nothing 
answering  to  it  in  the  realm  of  reality.  What  form  the 
coming  good  is  to  take  may  be  beforehand  very  uncertain ; 
of  its  nature  the  prophets  themselves  may  have  had  but  a 
vague  idea  largely  coloured  in  the  case  of  each  prophet  by 
the  circumstances  of  his  own  time.  In  consequence  of  the 
vagueness  of  their  delineations,  it  may  not  be  easy  for  us 
afterhand  to  detect  a  very  striking  or  convincing  corre- 
spondence between  their  pictures  of  the  good  that  was 
coming  and  the  good  that  came  through  Jesus  Christ 
It  is  certainly  not  so  easy  as  many  people  imagine. 
But  this  at  least  ought  to  be  true,  that  the  prophets 
were  not  mistaken  in  believing  that  the  best  was 
yet  to  be. 

This  at  least,  and  more.  For  if  Israel  was  indeed  an 
elect  people,  elect  for  the  world's  good,  as  well  as  for  her 
own,  the  prophets  were  surely  elect  men  who  had  some- 
thing to  say  concerning  the  nature  of  the  good,  not  merely 
to  contemporary  Israelites,  but  to  men  of  aU  time.  This 
being  a  reasonable  and  consistent  view  to  take  of  them,  we 
may  with  confidence  extract  from  their  writings  some 
general   outlines  of  the  good  that  was  to  be.    We  maj 

B 


258  APOLOOETIOS. 

expect  to  find  in  their  "Messianic  *  oracles  at  least  an 
irreducible  minimum  of  didactic  significance. 

One  legitimate  inference  is  the  vast  importance  that 
may  attach  to  a  single  individual  as  an  instrument  for  the 
realisation  of  God's  purpose  in  the  vocation  of  Israel. 
This  thought  is  suggested  by  the  stress  laid  by  the  prophets 
upon  the  ideal  king.  "Behold,  a  king  shall  reign  in 
righteousness ! "  *  They  speak  as  if  the  summum  honum 
might  come  through  one  man.  It  is  characteristic  of  them 
to  attach  importance  to  the  influence  of  the  individual 
They  are  hero- worshippers :  the  history  of  the  world  for 
them  is  the  history  of  great  men.  The  great  man,  the 
man  in  high  place  and  worthy  of  his  place,  can  do  wonders. 
He  "shall  be  as  an  hiding-place  from  the  wind,  and  a 
covert  from  the  tempest ;  as  rivers  of  water  in  a  dry  place, 
as  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary  land."  *  If  this 
be  true  of  any  great  man,  of  any  noble-minded  prince 
among  men,  how  much  more  of  the  greatest,  the  ideal  King, 
the  Prince  of  princes  1  The  value  thus  set  in  Hebrew 
prophecy  on  the  moral  hero  prepares  us  for  finding  that 
the  final  result  of  the  long  historical  development  in  Israel 
is  one  supreme  man,  the  Light  of  the  world.  That  the 
evolution  of  the  divine  purpose  should  issue  in  this  may  at 
first  seem  strange  and  disappointing.  We  began  with  the 
idea  of  a  nation,  a  holy  state  in  which  all  the  people 
should  be  righteous,  and  after  fourteen  centuries  we  get 
what  ?  A  single  unique  man,  of  ideal  worth,  springing 
like  a  root  out  of  a  very  dry  ground.  We  may  seek  to 
reconcile  ourselves  to  this  result,  not  merely  as  in  itself 
of  inestimable  value,  but  as  the  legitimate  product  of  a 
process  of  development,  by  various  lines  of  thought 
From  the  point  of  view  of  comparative  religion,  it  has 

1  Isa.  xxzll.  1. 

*  Isa.  xxziL  2.  Oheyne  tnuulat«t  t  "  A  great  man  shall  b«  aa  an  hiding- 
place  from  the  wind  ; "  and  adds  the  comment,  "  Strictly  any  one  (king  or 
prince)  who  belongs  to  the  class  of  great  men."  Tlie  Propheciet  of  Isaiah, 
kt  loe.  On  the  idea  of  tiie  passage,  vide  Q.  A.  Smith's  work  on  Isaiah,  ToL 
L  ohap.  XT.,  with  th«  soggeatiTC  headiiiK;  *-'  A  Kls," 


PROPHETIC    OPTIMISM.  259 

been  observed  *  that  there  comes  a  time  in  the  religious 
development  of  nations  which  have  been  in  a  position  to 
develop  their  intellectual  life  in  purity  and  tranquillity 
through  a  long  period  of  time,  when  the  centre  of  gravity 
of  all  higher  interests  shifts  from  without  to  within. 
With  this  change  comes  a  new  form  of  spiritual  fellow- 
ship. In  place  of  the  nation  there  arises  the  school,  the 
society,  or  the  holy  order.  The  centre  of  influence  in  such 
fellowships  is  an  individual  teacher  of  commanding  per- 
sonality. Illustrative  examples  are  supplied  in  Socrates, 
Buddha,  and  Christ.  There  may  be  something  worth 
noting  in  this.  But  for  one  who  believes  in  a  special 
revelation  of  God  to  Israel,  it  is  more  helpful  to  reflect 
that  all  Hebrew  prophecy  points  to  the  individual  as  the 
source  of  salvation.  I  say  not  to  the  Messiah,  as  if  they 
had  all  one  definite  personality  in  view,  specially  revealed 
to  them  as  the  final  bringer  in  of  the  golden  age.  The 
thing  here  insisted  on  is  the  prominence  given  to  the 
principle  of  individuality,  and  the  inference  suggested  that 
the  ultimate  fulfilment  of  God's  gracious  purpose  will  come 
through  one  man.  We  may  not  be  on  so  sure  ground 
when  we  attempt  to  determine  the  manner  of  the  man  by 
aid  of  prophetic  delineations.  Historic  exegesis  may  not 
justify  us  in  treating  Isaiah's  list  of  wondrous  attributes  as 
personal  characteristics,  and  so  arriving  at  tlie  conclusion 
that  the  Saviour  of  the  latter  days  is  to  be  not  merely  a 
great  man,  but  God  Almighty.'  But  it  will  justify  us  at 
least  in  expecting  Him  to  be  an  Anointed  One,  divinely 

*  01denb«rg,  Buddha :  His  Life,  His  Doctrine,  His  Order,  pp.  8,  4. 

*  Professor  Robertson  Smith  remarks  (The  Prophets  of  Israel,  p.  807)  : 
"  The  prophet  does  not  say  that  the  king  is  the  mighty  God  and  the  everlast- 
ing Father,  but  that  Hi*  name  is  divine  and  eternal,  that  is,  that  the 
divine  might  and  everlasting  fatherhood  of  Jehovah  are  displayed  in  Hia 
mle."  Ewald  (Die  Propheten  des  Alien  Bundes)  says  :  *'  We  must  look  on 
16  as  the  name  which  a  new  king  assumed  to  be  placed  on  his  shield,  banner, 
or  arms  ;  it  could  not  be  allowed  more  than  a  limited  space  upon  the  shield, 
•nd  therefore  had  to  be  condensed. 


▲mnssd  thua  J  ^<*"<l*rful-Coan8ellor,  Hero-God, 
^^  (  Everlasting  Father,       Prince  of  1 


Pea«.* 


260  APOLOGETICS. 

endowed  with  right  kingly  qualities  of  wisdom,  justice,  and 
benignity. 

The  ethical  ideal  of  Jeremiah  suggests  another  inference 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  good  that  is  to  be.  His  conception 
of  a  regenerated  nation  contains  an  element  which  goes 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  ideal  as  he  conceived  it.  He 
thought  of  a  regenerated  Israel,  all  her  citizens  having 
God's  law  written  on  their  hearts.  But  why  should 
regeneration  be  national  ?  If  you  keep  to  externals,  to 
such  matters  as  language,  race,  land,  and  custom,  you 
properly  limit  your  ideal  to  a  nation.  But  the  moral  law 
written  on  the  heart  has  nothing  merely  national  about  it : 
it  is  the  afifair  of  humanity. 

Consciously  or  unconsciously,  therefore,  Jeremiah  gives 
us  the  great  idea  of  a  kingdom  of  God  independent  of 
nationality,  including  among  its  citizens  aU  the  pure  in 
heart. 

A  royal  man,  and  a  divine  kingdom:  these  are  two 
of  the  goods  that  are  to  come  in  the  era  of  consummation. 
But  how  are  they  to  be  connected  ?  Let  the  prophet  of 
the  exile  answer.  The  ideal  man  will  make  himself  the 
king  of  hearts  by  wisdom  and  by  suffering.  He  will  show 
to  teachable  spirits  the  true  God,  and  they  will  gladly  take 
his  yoke  upon  them;  he  will  suffer  at  the  hands  of  the 
unrighteous,  and  will  conquer  his  enemies  by  meek  endur- 
ance. 

These  three  things,  the  highest  boons  of  God  to  men : 
a  moral  Hero,  a  kingdom  of  the  good,  and  the  moral  Hero 
making  Himself  the  king  of  that  kingdom  by  spiritual 
insight  and  self-sacrifice,  as  the  suffering  servant  of  God, 
are  the  chief  fruitage  of  that  remarkable  group  of  pro 
phecies  usually  called  Messianic,  which  embody  thb 
optimistic  ideals  of  Hebrew  seers.  They  are  not  extractea 
from  stray  texts,  or  based  on  remarkable  special  pre- 
dictions like  that  of  the  virgin  conceiving,  but  represent 
the  main  drift  of  Messianic  oracles.  "  The  rod  out  of  the 
stem  of  Jesse,"  the  law  written  on  the  heart,  and  the  "  man 


JUDAISM.  261 

of  sorrows  and  acquainted  with  grief,"  are  the  foreground 

of  the  prophetic  delineation  of  the  future,  the  kernel  of  the 
summum  bonum  as  conceived  by  the  prophetic  imagination, 
as  the  prophecies  containing  them  are  among  the  highest 
products  of  prophetic  genius.  They  follow  each  other  in 
the  natural  order  of  succession :  first  the  king  sketched 
by  Isaiah  of  Jerusalem,  then  the  regenerate  people  the 
lovely  dream  of  Jeremiah,  then  the  suffering  servant  of 
Jehovah  presented  to  our  view  in  all  his  tragic  dignity  by 
the  prophet  of  the  exile ;  prophetic  insight  becoming 
clearer  and  deeper  with  the  course  of  time  and  the 
progress  of  events. 

In  Jesus  Christ  these  three  ideals  meet  He  is  the 
Eoyal  Man.  He  brings  in  the  kingdom  of  grace.  He  is 
the  man  of  sorrow  who  conquers  human  hearts  by  sufl'ering 
love.  Is  this  historic  realisation  of  prophetic  ideals  an 
accident  oi  >.  God-appointed  fulfilment  ? 


CHAPTEE  VIL 

JUDAISM. 

LiTERATUEE. — Ewald,  Gesckichte  des  Volkes  Israel,  B.  iv. ; 

Wellhausen,  Prolegomena;  Stade,  Gesckichte  des  Volke» 
Israel;  W.  Eobertson  Smith,  The  Old  Testatment  in  the 
Jewish  Church  (1st  ed.  1881,  2nd  ed.  much  enlarged,  1892); 
Schultz,  Alttestamentliche  Theologie,  4te  Aufl. ;  Toy,  Judaism 
and  Christianity ;  Sack,  Die  Altjudische  Religion ;  W.  R 
Smith,  article  on  the  "  Psalter  "  in  Encyclopcedia  Britannica 
(the  main  conclusions  of  this  article  are  embodied  in  the  new 
edition  of  The  Old  Testament  in  the  Jeivish  Church);  Cheyne, 
The  Origin  of  the  Psalter  (Bampton  Lectures). 

In  passing  from  Prophetism  to  Judaism  as  introduced 
by  Ezra,  we  seem  to  make  a  great  descent.  As  we  study 
the  relative  literature,  the  thought  suggests  itself,  what  a 
fall  is  here !  Eeading  first  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  and  the 
prophet  of  the  exile,  then  taking  up  Ezra  and  Nehemiah, 


262  APOLOGETICS. 

we  feel  as  if  we  were  making  a  sudden  plunge  from  poetry 
to  prose,  from  inspiration  to  legalism,  from  a  religion  of 
faith  to  a  religion  of  self-righteousness.  The  very  prayers 
of  Nehemiah  seem  to  breathe  a  new  spirit :  "  Remember  me, 
O  my  God,  concerning  this,  and  wipe  not  out  my  good  deeds 
that  I  have  done  for  the  house  of  my  God,  and  for  the 
offices  thereof."  *     "  Remember  me,  0  my  God,  for  good."  * 

Reverence  for  Scripture  makes  one  hesitate  to  trust 
himself  in  forming  such  a  judgment  And  yet  such 
hesitation  is  mistaken.  Judaism  may  be  a  natural  and 
legitimate  step  in  the  onward  progress  of  the  religion  of 
Israel.  God  may  be  in  it,  using  it  as  a  preparation  for 
the  final  stage,  a  harbinger  of  Christ  But  that  is  quite 
compatible  with  its  being  in  comparison  with  something 
going  before  inferior  and  weak,  as  even  the  advocates  of 
traditional  views  as  to  the  course  of  revelation  will  allow 
when  they  remember  that  the  law  came  after  the  promise, 
to  which  nevertheless  it  was  but  a  humble  handmaid. 
The  first  thing  needful,  therefore,  to  a  right  understanding 
of  the  present  phase  of  Israel's  religion,  is  to  grasp  firmly 
the  fact  that  it  is  a  distinct  thing  from  anything  going 
before,  and  a  decidedly  inferior  thing. 

Judaism,  apart  altogether  from  critical  questions,  was 
distinct  from  Mosaism.  The  distinguishing  feature  of 
Mosaism,  as  we  have  seen,  was  that  it  asserted  the 
supremacy  of  the  moral,  as  compared  with  ritual.  This 
fundamental  principle  the  prophets  reasserted  with  new 
emphasis  and  widened  range  of  application,  so  showing 
themselves  to  be  the  true  sons  of  Moses.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  distinctive  characteristic  of  Judaism  was  that  it 
put  ritual  on  a  level  with  morality,  treated  Levitical  rules 
as  of  equal  importance  with  the  Decalogue,  making  no  dis- 
tinction between  one  part  of  the  law  and  another,  but 
demanding  compliance  with  the  prescribed  ceremonial  of 
worship  as  not  less  necessary  to  good  relations  with  God 
than  a  righteous  Ufa  This  was  a  new  thing  in  Israel; 
^  K«h.  xiii.  14,  >  Neh.  ziii.  81. 


JUDAISM.  263 

and  it  was  a  great  downcome :  a  descent  from  liberty  to 
bondage,  from  evangelic  to  legal  relations  with  God,  from 
the  spirit  to  the  letter.  It  was  so  great  a  downcome  that 
the  difficulty  is  to  see  how  God  could  have  any  hand  in  it. 
How  could  the  Jehovah  that  inspired  the  Hebrew  legislator 
and  the  prophets,  giving  to  them  those  great,  broad,  free 
thoughts  which  still  possess  the  highest  spiritual  value, 
be  a  party  to  the  inbringing  of  an  elaborate  system  of 
religious  formalism  ?  Can  we  imagine  Him  inspiring 
Ezra  the  scribe  as  he  plies  his  task  of  putting  into 
written  form  the  Levitical  legislation  as  it  lies  before 
us  now  in  the  middle  books  of  the  Pentateuch  ?  Is  not 
this  new  type  of  functionary,  the  scribe,  the  very  antipodes 
of  the  prophet,  and  as  antipathetic  to  the  very  idea  of 
inspiration  as  the  latter  is  in  sympathy  with  it  ?  And 
what  is  the  effect  of  Ezra's  work  ?  Is  it  not  a  reversion 
to  that  confusion  of  morality  with  ritual  characteristic  of 
pagan  conceptions  of  right  conduct,  as  exemplified  in  the 
Egyptian  trial  of  the  dead  ?  It  was  the  merit  of  Moses 
and  the  prophets,  we  saw,  that  they  differentiated  between 
the  two  kinds  of  action,  as  of  altogether  different  value. 
What  then,  one  naturally  asks,  is  this  Ezra  movement  but 
a  cancelling  of  their  beneficent  work,  and  a  lapse  from  the 
high  moral  level  reached  by  them  to  the  low  level  of 
heathenism  I  ^ 

Such  is  the  difficulty  we  have  to  face.  It  has  been 
observed  that  Levitical  ordinances,  whether  they  existed 
before  the  exile  or  no,  were  not  yet  God's  word  to  Israel 
at  that  time."  The  question  is,  Could  they  be  God's  word 
after  the  exile  ?  Is  it  not  more  easy  to  conceive  them 
being  God's  word  at  the  beginning  than  so  late  in  the  day 
after  He  had  given  to  Israel  a  far  higher  word  ?  Do  these 
ordinances,  coming  in  at  so  late  a  period,  not  look  very 

*  Wellhausen,  in  his  Prolegomena  to  the  History  of  Israel,  p.  422,  says, 
"The  onltns  is  the  heathen  element  in  the  Israelite  religion." 

'  Professor  Bohertaon  Smith,  The  Old  Testament  tn  the  Jewish  Okurck 
Snd  ed.  p.  310. 


264  AFOLOOBTICS. 

like  a  degeneracy  such  as  is  wont  to  occur  in  the  religions  of 
the  pagans,  whose  first  thoughts  of  God  ar»  ^ften  better  than 
their  last ;  such  as  took  place,  e.g.,  in  the  Persian  religion, 
which  as  reformed  by  Zarathustra  seems  to  have  been  a  com- 
paratively pure  thing,  but  in  after  times  became  more  and 
more  an  elaborate  system  of  ceremonialism  ?  What  if  during 
the  exile  the  captives  had  taken  lessons  from  their  masters  ? 
The  attempt  to  show  that  the  introduction  of  Levitical- 
ism,  viewed  as  happening  after  the  exile,  might  be  a 
legitimate  step  in  the  onward  march  of  the  religion  of 
revelation,  does  seem  very  discouraging.  And  yet  there  is 
another  side  to  the  matter.  Leviticalism,  Judaism,  may  be 
conceived  of  as  a  husk  to  protect  the  kernel  of  ethical 
monotheism.  Ezra  and  his  companions,  just  because  they 
were  faithful  disciples  of  the  prophets,  zealous  for  the 
honour  of  Jehovah,  the  God  of  Israel,  might  regard  the 
enforcement  of  a  carefully  prepared  scheme  of  religious 
ritual  as  the  best  means  of  protecting  that  honour  from 
violation.  It  is  significant,  as  an  indication  that  this  was 
really  their  point  of  view,  that  in  the  earlier  period  of  the 
captivity  the  prophet  Ezekiel  began  to  occupy  himself  with 
the  preparation  of  such  a  scheme.  We  must  not  try  to 
minimise  the  significance  of  this  fact  by  laying  stress  on 
the  circumstance  that  Ezekiel  was  a  priest.  It  is  more  to 
the  purpose  to  note  that  the  priest  was  also  a  prophet,  and 
that  in  his  whole  way  of  thinking  he  was  a  link  of 
connection  between  Prophetism  and  Judaism.  The  last 
eight  chapters  of  Ezekiel's  book  of  prophecy  appear  to  be 
a  first  sketch  of  a  Levitical  system,  prepared  by  one  who 
believed  that  it  would  serve  the  end  which  all  the  prophets 
had  at  heart  These  chapters,  so  viewed,  are  one  of  the 
strongest  proofs  that  the  priestly  legislation  of  the  Penta- 
teuch was  not  Mosaic  If  it  had  been,  why  should  Ezekiel 
have  occupied  himself  with  the  preparation  of  a  fancy 
programme  ?  It  is  difiicult  on  that  view  to  regard  that 
programme  as  serious,  as  anything  more  than  a  pastime  to 
while  away  the  weary  days  of  the  captivity.     But  this  by 


JUDAISM.  266 

the  way.  The  point  insisted  on  here  is  that  Ezekiel  the 
prophet  takes  also  a  great  interest  in  ritual,  and  that  this 
fact  may  fairly  be  adduced  as  a  proof  that  to  men  setting 
a  high  value  on  the  prophetic  idea  of  God,  the  careful 
regulation  of  religious  ritual  might,  in  the  light  of  past 
experience,  appear  a  matter  of  importance. 

From  this  point  of  view  we  can  see  how  Judaism,  though 
wearing  a  suspicious  resemblance  to  heathenism,  in  attach- 
ing so  much  importance  to  ritual,  nevertheless  stands  on  a 
different  footing.  The  promoters  of  the  new  movement 
did  not  really  put  ritual  on  a  level  with  morality,  as  of 
equal  importance  in  the  sight  of  God.  They  simply 
regarded  it  as  a  very  important  means  towards  the  great 
end  of  keeping  the  people  of  Israel  faithful  in  heart  and 
life  to  God.  And  it  is  not  difificult  to  imagine  how  they 
could  arrive  at  this  conclusion.  We  have  but  to  make  a 
little  effort  to  get  inside  the  minds  of  the  exiles.  By  the 
rivers  of  Babylon  they  sat  down  and  wept  But  they  did 
more  than  weep ;  they  thought  much,  earnestly,  and  sadly 
on  the  past  history  of  their  peopla  In  the  clear  light  of 
experience  they  saw  that  Israel's  misfortunes  had  come 
upon  her  for  her  sins ;  for  the  one  grand  all-comprehending 
sin  of  unfaithfulness  to  Jehovah,  Out  of  this  insight  sprang 
ft  purpose  of  amendment,  and  a  disposition  to  consider 
carefully  the  best  means  for  guarding  in  future  against 
the  errors  wliich  had  entailed  on  the  covenant  people  such 
an  inheritance  of  woe.  This  penitent,  pensive  mood  may 
have  borne  fruit  in  various  directions.  Possibly  one  result 
was  the  compilation  of  the  historical  books,  in  which  the 
story  of  Israel  is  told  from  the  time  of  the  Judges  to  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem.^     Literary  activity  is  one  of  the 

*  To  the  period  of  the  exUe  Professor  Ryle  refers,  among  other  literary 
labours,  the  combination  of  the  Deuteronomic  law  with  the  book  of  Joshua, 
and  with  the  Jehovist-Elohist  history  of  Israel's  beginnings.  The  motives 
of  this  literary  activity  he  finds  in  "  the  reverence  with  which  the  pious  Jew, 
in  his  Babylonian  exile,  would  regard  the  archives  that  recorded  the  begin- 
Bings  of  his  nation  and  the  foundation  of  his  fiaith."  Vide  Tht  CiUMm  ^ 
tke  Old  Teatameta,  p.  69. 


266  APOLOOKTICa 

consolations  of  captiveB,  prisoners,  and   exilea      Bunyan 

wrote  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  in  Bedford  gaol,  Spencer's 
Faery  Queen  was  composed  mainly  in  an  Irish  wilderness, 
and  was  thus,  as  the  author  tells  us,  "the  fruit  of  savage 
soil."  With  books  written  under  such  conditions  none  can 
compare  for  sweetness,  beauty,  and  calm,  solemn  dignity. 
How  much  of  the  best  Book  do  we  owe  to  the  exiles  of 
Babylon :  the  oracles  of  Isaiah  the  second,  for  example ! 
The  fact,  if  it  be  a  fact,  has  doubtless  something  to  do 
with  the  exceptional  worth  of  these  writings.  It  is  by 
deep  sorrow  God  makes  men  wise. 

The  study  of  the  past  history  of  Israel,  with  which  we 
may  conceive  the  best  of  the  exiles  earnestly  occupied, 
might  very  readily  suggest  that  the  worship  of  Jehovah 
wanted  regulation.  They  could  see  how  the  old  provincial 
sanctuary  system,  that  had  been  in  vogue  till  the  time  of 
Josiah's  reformation,  opened  a  wide  door  to  Canaanite 
corruptions.  They  could  see  how  for  want  of  due  pre- 
cautions idolatrous  abuses  crept  into  even  the  temple 
worship.  From  the  whole  survey  they  would  get  the 
impression  that  the  religious  life  of  their  fathers  had  been 
too  free,  and  that  the  only  effectual  way  to  exclude 
idolatrous  practices  in  future,  should  God  in  His  mercy 
restore  them  to  their  own  land,  would  be  to  have  the 
service  of  the  sanctuary  regulated  down  to  the  minutest 
particulars,  with  purity  of  worship  as  the  guiding  principle 
in  the  process  of  reconstruction.  For  the  same  general 
purpose  of  shutting  out  the  impure  influence  of  heathenism 
they  would  perceive  the  need  of  a  carefully  elaborated 
system  of  rules  for  securing  holiness  in  the  outer  conduct, 
that  the  whole  life  of  Israel  might  be  clean  in  God's  sight. 
The  outcome  of  the  reforming  spirit  would  naturally  be  a 
body  of  rules  like  the  priestly  code,  a  very  fuUy  developed 
corpus  of  sacrificial  and  ceremonial  law. 

The  promoters  of  this  reforming  movement  might  very 
well  have  the  feeling  that  they  were  true  to  the  spirit  of 
Moses,  and  doing  their  best  to  preserve  intact  the  Mosaic 


JUDAISM.  267 

religion.  The  logic  of  their  position  might  be  thus  put : 
One  God,  one  sanctuary,  and  at  the  one  sanctuary  a  care- 
fully regulated  service  offered  by  a  people  scrupulously 
guarded  against  all  uncleanness  in  all  relations  and  actions 
of  their  lives.  They  might  claim  that  this  was  the  logic 
of  history,  each  link  in  the  chain  of  argument  being 
established  one  after  the  other  in  Israel's  experience.  One 
God,  said  Moses,  "  Thou  shalt  have  no  other  gods  before 
me."  Whatever  more  he  said,  Israel  acted  for  long  as  if 
he  had  said  no  more.  There  were  many  sanctuaries  in  the 
land,  and  the  worship  carried  on  there  was  to  a  large 
extent  spontaneous,  and  too  often  degraded  by  imitations  of 
vile  Canaanitish  custonL  Then  at  length  it  was  seen  that 
one  God  demanded  one  sanctuary,  and  the  Deuteronomic 
law  came  into  force.  But  even  this  reform  did  not  secure 
for  Israel's  one  true  God  His  due  honour.  Jeremiah  had 
to  complain  of  his  contemporaries  that  they  burned  incense 
unto  Baal,  and  walked  after  other  gods,  and  made  the 
temple  a  den  of  robbers;*  and  Ezekiel,  looking  back  on 
what  went  on  there  before  the  captivity,  speaks  of  the 
defilement  of  the  holy  place  by  the  "  whoredom "  of 
idolatrous  worship,  and  by  its  sacred  precincts  being  turned 
into  places  of  sepulture  for  the  kings.'  Thus  men 
zealous  for  God's  honour  were  forced  on  to  the  final  stage 
in  the  logical  process :  one  uniform,  carefully  constructed, 
strictly  enforced  system  of  worship.  And  in  carrying  out 
this  programme  they  might  regard  themselves  as  simply  put- 
ting the  copestone  on  the  work  of  Moses,  and  feel  entitled 
to  invest  the  new  code  with  the  authority  of  his  name. 

This  statement  helps  us  to  understand  how  the  priestly 
code,  assuming  it  to  be  in  form,  and  in  many  of  its  details, 
a  new  thing,  the  product  of  the  reforming  zeal  of  the  exiles, 
might  reasonably  be  represented  as  a  faithful  following  out  of 
the  principles  of  Mosaism.  And  this,  it  will  be  remembered, 
is  what  we  here  are  chiefly  concerned  with.  The  question  for 
us  is  not  the  critical  one  whether  the  priestly  code  be  post- 
1  Jar.  TiL  IL  *  Emk.  xlilL  7. 


268  APOLOGETIGS. 

exilic,  but  whether,  assuming  that  it  was,  we  can  claim  foi 

it  to  be  in  the  intention  of  its  authors,  and  in  its  main  drift, 
a  legitimate  and  useful  development  of  Israel's  religion.  It 
may,  or  it  may  not  be,  that  Ezra  the  scribe  was  something 
more  than  a  clerk  preparing  a  clean  copy  of  an  old  statute- 
book,  or  even  than  a  servile  redactor  of  ancient  unwritten 
usage;  an  originator,  rather  than  a  transmitter,  such  as 
Confucius  modestly  claimed  to  be.  It  is  certainly  not 
unnatural  to  regard  Ezra,  freshly  arrived  from  Persia,  in 
Palestine,  with  the  law  of  his  God  in  his  hand,  as  an 
epoch  -  making  man,  a  kind  of  second  Moses,  a  new 
legislator  only  assuming  the  old  one's  name.  But,  be  that 
as  it  may,  the  main  question  is.  Was  the  work  done  by 
Ezra  good  and  wholesome,  or  the  reverse  ? 

Now  it  needs  but  a  hasty  and  general  survey  of  the 
priestly  code  to  be  satisfied  that  there  was  much  in  it  that 
tended  towards  the  realisation  of  the  Mosaic  ideal  of  a 
holy  people  faithful  to  Jehovah.  One  outstanding  feature 
in  it  is  the  prominence  given  to  the  idea  of  sin.  This  has 
indeed  been  represented  as  a  fault  in  the  new  post-exilic 
system,  as  compared  with  the  old  religion  of  Israel.  In 
the  good  old  times  religion,  we  are  told,  was  a  part  of 
common  life,  and  an  incident  of  festive  occasions.  Worship 
and  feasting  went  hand  in  hand.  The  sacred  times  were 
associated  with  the  seasons  of  the  year,  which  are  the 
natural  occasions  of  rejoicing,  such  as  the  seasons  of  the 
wheat  harvest  and  the  vintage.  The  sacrifices  had  little 
reference  to  sin,  but  were  of  a  joyous  nature, — "  a  merry- 
making before  Jehovah  with  music  and  song,  timbrels, 
flutes,  and  stringed  instruments."  How  sad  that  all  this 
innocent  happiness  should  pass  away  and  be  replaced  by 
the  "  monotonous  seriousness "  of  Levitical  worship !  * 
Just  as  sad  as  that  the  Sunday  sports  and  the  dancing 
round  the  May-pole  of  merry  old  England  should  be 
replaced  by  the  seriousness  of  the  Puritans.  Mirth  is 
good,  but  too   much  mirth  is  unsuitable  to  the  world  we 

*  Wellhausen,  Prolegomena,  p.  8L 


JUDAISM.  269 

live  in,  and  even  dangerous  to  morals.  A  nation  given  up 
to  mirth  is  apt  to  be  a  nation  given  up  to  moral  licence. 
So  it  proved  in  Israel.  And  therefore  it  was  well,  it  was 
a  real  advance  ii?  moral  culture,  that  the  religious  system 
should  be  so  altered  as  to  develop  a  deeper  consciousness  of 
sin.  It  tended  to  a  more  exalted  view  of  the  holiness  of 
Qod,  and  to  greater  heedfulness  in  conduct 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  the  ceremonial  law,  not  less 
than  the  sacrificial,  tended  in  the  same  direction.  The 
prescriptions  with  regard  to  uncleanness  may  seem  to  us 
very  irksome,  but  it  is  when  we  look  at  them  in  the  light 
of  pagan  Semitic  worship  that  we  perceive  their  beneficent 
purpose.  In  detail,  these  prescriptions  have  much  in 
common  with  the  customs  of  other  peoples,  like  the 
Egyptians  and  Persians,  but  in  aim  they  stand  alone,  and 
in  reference  to  the  paganism  nearest  Israel  they  have  all 
the  efiect  of  a  studied  antagonism.  The  contrast  has  been 
well  described  by  Schultz.  "  The  nature- worship  of  the 
Canaanites  draws  the  divine  down  into  the  processes  of 
nature,  and  is  implicated  with  them.  The  ceremonial  law 
wiU  first  sanctify  and  purify  these  in  order  to  lift  them  up 
to  Grod.  Nature-worship  seeks  to  honour  the  Godhead  by 
unlimited  self  -  surrender  to  nature  with  its  impulses, 
powers,  passions,  and  motions.  Death  and  procreation  are 
for  it  the  secret  centres  of  the  religious  contemplation  of 
nature.  The  ceremonial  law  seeks  to  honour  the  Creator 
of  life  as  exalted  above  nature,  by  devoting  to  Him  all 
that  ia  natural,  and  by  destroying  all  that  is  out  of 
harmony  with  the  divine."  *  In  the  light  of  this  contrast 
we  can  understand  and  sympathise  with  the  laws  relating 
to  sexual  intercourse,  the  rite  of  circumcision,  the  purifi- 
cation of  a  mother  after  child-birth.  They  all  tended  to 
purity,  and  to  the  fostering  of  a  salutary  abhorrence  of 
the  vileness  of  Baal-worship  which  made  prostitution  a 
religious  service. 

One  other  feature  of  the  priestly  code  may  hen  be 
^  AUUatamentliehe  TheologU,  4te  Aofl.  p.  46S. 


270  APOLOQEnCS. 

briefly  adverted  ta  The  centralisation  of  worship  iii  a 
single  sanctuary,  and  the  commitment  of  the  whole  sacnli- 
cial  service  into  the  hands  of  a  priestly  class,  if  an 
innovation  as  regards  Mosaism,  had  certainly  a  tendency 
to  prepare  men  for  the  religion  of  the  spirit  which  came  in 
with  Jesus.  In  old  times,  it  would  appear,  killing  for 
food  and  sacrifice  were  the  same  thing,  and  every  man  was 
his  own  priest.  Sacrifice  was  a  thing  of  daily  occurrence, 
and  an  essential  element  of  religion.  The  centralisation  of 
worship  changed  all  that.  Sacrifice  became  an  aflkir  of 
stated  seasons,  public  sacrifice  for  all  Israel  threw  into  the 
shade  private  sacrifice,  and  the  ofifering  of  victims  became 
the  business  of  a  professional  class.  But  religion  is  not 
an  afiair  for  two  or  three  seasons  in  the  year,  but  for  daily 
life.  Therefore  men  had  to  find  out  for  themselves  means 
for  the  culture  of  piety  independent  of  Levitical  ritual 
The  need  was  felt  in  exile  when  the  temple  worship  was 
perforce  suspended,  and  it  would  continue  to  be  felt  when 
the  second  temple  had  been  built  and  a  new  altar  erected 
The  synagogue,  with  its  prayers  and  its  reading  of  the 
Scriptures,  met  the  want,  and  educated  men  for  a  time 
when  temple  and  sacrifice  would  finally  disappear. 

Tims  far  my  aim  has  been  to  show  that  Neo-Mosaism,  as 
I  have  ventered  to  call  the  movement  initiated  by  Ezekiel 
and  consummated  by  Ezra,  was  a  thing  in  which  God- 
inspired  men  might  have  part.  But  now,  quite  compatibly 
with  that  view,  it  may  be  frankly  acknowledged  that  the 
new  turn  taken  by  Israel's  religion  involved  its  own  peculiar 
risks.  The  danger  was  that  scrupulous  care  in  the  regulation 
of  worship  and  the  guarding  of  life  from  impurity  would 
end  in  formalism,  in  that  righteousness  of  the  scribes  which 
was  80  mercilessly  condemned  by  Jesus.  Freedom  had 
ended  in  moral  religious  licence.  Judaism  cured  that  by 
hedging  the  people  in  on  every  side  by  positive  law,  and 
the  evil  now  to  be  apprehended  was  that  the  cure  would 
breed  a  new  and  worse  disease  —  dead,  rotten- hearted 
legalism.     It  might  even  be  affirmed  with  a  measure   of 


JUDAISM.  271 

truth  that  the  sinister  reign  of  legalism  began  the  day  that 
Ezra  appeared  on  Jewish  soil  with  the  law  in  his  hand. 

Yet  we  have  the  means  of  satisfying  ourselves  that  the 
evil  latent  in  the  new  movement  remained  an  undeveloped 
germ  in  Ezra's  time  and  even  for  a  while  after.  One 
important  fact  tending  to  prove  this  is  that  men  of  pro- 
phetic spirit  were  in  sympathy  with  Ezra's  work ;  Ezekiel 
for  example.  In  the  writings  of  this  prophet,  the  char- 
acteristic mark  of  the  new  departure — the  mixing  of  morality 
with  ritual,  righteousness  with  technical  holiness,  as  if  they 
were  on  the  same  level — is  everywhere  apparent  So,  for 
instance,  in  his  description  of  the  just  man  in  the  discourse 
in  which  he  controverts  the  proverb  concerning  the  fathers 
eating  sour  grapes  and  the  children's  teeth  set  on  edge. 
Acts  of  very  different  quality  and  value  are  all  classed 
together  there  as  if  of  the  same  importance.*  This  is 
certainly  a  descent  from  the  high  level  of  prophetic  teaching, 
or  even  of  Mosaism.  But  that  is  a  criticism  of  Judaism 
which  has  to  be  made  once  for  all.  The  thing  to  be  noted 
here  is  that  there  is  not  the  slightest  trace  in  Ezekiel's 
prophecies  of  the  common  tendency  of  ritualism  to  under- 
mine the  ethical,  and  to  weaken  or  pervert  the  moral 
sentiments.  He  hates  oppression  and  inhumanity  and 
greed  as  vigorously  as  Amos  or  Isaiah. 

Similar  remarks  apply  to  the  great  prophet  of  the  exila 
There  are  indications  here  and  there  in  the  later  part  of  the 
book  of  Isaiah  that  the  writer  was  not  uninfluenced  by  the 
spirit  of  Judaism,  as  in  the  manner  in  which  the  observance 
of  the  Sabbath  is  spoken  of,*  and  the  eating  of  swine's 
flesh  condemned.*  But  with  this  leaning  to  the  positive  in 
religion  there  is  combined  a  most  refreshing  sense  of  the 
•upreme  importance  of  the  great  principles  of  morality,  and 
a  withering  contempt  for  religious  service  divorced  from 
right  conduct.  Is  it,  asks  the  prophet  indignantly,  "  Is  it 
such  a  fast  that  I  have  chosen  ?  a  day  for  a  man  to  afflict 
his  soul  ?  is  it  to  bow  down  his  head  as  a  bulrush,  and  to 
1  Bnk.  zTiiL  *  I««.  ItL  4;  iTiiL  18.  *  Isa.  Ixr.  4  ;  IzrL  17. 


272  APOLOOKTICS. 

spread   sackdoth   and  ashes  under  him?  wilt   thou   eall 

this  a  fast,  and  an  acceptable  day  to  the  Lord  t  Is  not 
this  the  fast  that  I  have  chosen  ?  to  loose  the  bands  of 
wickedness,  to  undo  the  heavy  burdens,  and  to  let  the 
oppressed  go  free,  and  that  ye  break  every  yoke  ?  Is  it  not 
to  deal  thy  bread  to  the  hungry,  and  that  thou  bring  the 
poor  that  are  cast  out  to  thy  house  ?  when  thou  seest  the 
naked,  that  thou  cover  him ;  and  that  thou  hide  not  thyself 
from  thine  own  flesh  ? "  *  We  feel  that  this  teaching  is  in 
thorough  sympathy  with  the  prophetic  passion  for  righteous- 
ness, and  anticipates  the  doctrine  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount 

But  the  amplest  evidence  that  Judaism  in  at  least  its 
earlier  stage  was  of  wholesome  moral  tendency,  and  knew 
how  to  keep  ritual  in  its  own  place,  as  only  a  means, 
however  important,  to  a  higher  end,  is  supplied  in  the 
Psalter,  which  recent  criticism  with  increasing  confidence 
regards  as,  in  its  contents,  mainly  of  post-exilic  origin,  and, 
in  its  use,  the  song-book  of  the  second  temple.  There  is 
no  conceivable  ground  for  being  jealous  of  this  conclusion, 
though  somehow,  owing  to  the  influence  probably  of  the 
old  traditional  opinion,  there  is  a  lurking  inclination  in 
one's  mind  to  regard  all  attempts  to  assign  to  any  of  the 
psalms  late  dates  as  a  dangerous  heresy.  Slowly,  however, 
it  begins  to  dawn  on  us  that  in  this  case  criticism,  like  a 
wise  physician,  heals  itself.  Critics  tell  us  that  the  priestly 
code  is  post-exilic,  and  we  are  apt  to  see  in  it,  so  viewed, 
simply  a  religious  declension  in  which  the  God  of  Moses 
and  the  prophets  could  have  no  part.  But  tht  other  doctrine 
of  the  critics  concerning  the  post-exilic  origin  of  the  Psalter 
comes  in  as  the  needful  antidote  to  this  sceptical  mood. 
For  if  the  Psalter  be  indeed  of  post-exilic  origin,  then  it  is 
certain  that  Judaism,  or  scribism  if  you  will,  in  the  earlier 
stage  at  least,  cannot  have  been  wholly  the  evil  thing  we 
thought  it.  It  was  not  such  as  to  drive  the  spirit  of  inspira- 
tion away  from  Israel  Prophecy  after  all  did  not  quite 
*  Isa.  Iviii  5-7 


JUDAISM.  273 

cease  with  MalachL  If,  as  the  critics  think,  not  a  few 
psahns,  such  as  the  30th,  and  the  group  113th  to  118th, 
also  the  group  145th  to  150th,  belong  to  the  Maccabaean 
time,  then  the  light  of  inspiration  lingered  in  Israel  for 
some  three  centuries  after  Ezra  appeared  in  Jerusalem  with 
the  law  in  his  hand.  Why  should  we  hesitate  to  believe 
this  ?  Should  we  not  rather  be  thankful  to  know  that  God 
did  not  altogether  forsake  His  people  during  the  dreary 
winter  night  of  legalism,  but  gave  them  the  twinkling 
starlight  of  sacred  poetry  to  keep  them  in  good  heart  ? 

Those  songs  of  the  night  are  not  only  very  beautiful  and 
charming  as  poetry,  but  highly  spiritual  Though  contain- 
ing no  new  ideas  in  advance  of  the  prophets,  they  rise  to 
the  highest  water-mark  of  prophetic  religion.  They  show 
that  the  prophetic  religion  flowed  on  and  kept  the  land 
from  becoming  a  wilderness  under  the  arid  infl^uence  of  the 
scribes.  Perhaps  we  ought  to  say :  they  show  that  that 
influence  was  not  so  arid  as  we  are  apt  to  imagine.  For 
they  express  unfeigned  delight  in  the  temple  and  its 
services  and  sacred  seasons,*  and  not  less  in  the  law 
wherein  psalmists  found  not  merely  ceremonial  rules,  but 
great  principles  of  wisdom.*  The  true  source  of  the  delight 
is  that  God  is  there,  and  that  the  law  and  the  religioua 
ordinances  are  the  means  of  a  blessed  communion  between 
God  and  the  souL  And  this  communion  psalmists  know 
how  to  maintain  apart  from  the  temple  and  its  cultus, 
while  keenly  missing  the  privileges  connected  therewith. 
Witness  the  contrition  for  sin  expressed  ex  hypothesi  by  a 
psalmist  of  the  exile,*  the  hope  in  God  of  another  psalmist 
far  removed  from  the  house  of  God,*  the  joy  in  God 
as  a  sun  and  shield,  and  as  the  source  of  all  good,  of 
a  third,  who  envies  the  birds  that  flit  about  the  temple 
precincts.'^ 

The  psalms  are  not  only  eminently  devotional,  but 
humane.     Not  a  few  of  them,  such  as  the  67th,  the  87tb 

^  Pk.  T.,  xzTiL,  xliL,  Itttit.,  czzU.  '  Ps.  ziz.,  cziz. 

•  Pi.  li.  *  Pa.  xlii  •  Pb.  Ixxxiy. 

8 


274  APOLOGETICS. 

and  the  100th,  breathe  the  spirit  of  universailsm.  They 
are  in  sympathy  with  the  great  word  of  the  last  of  the 
prophets,  which,  like  the  cuckoo  note,  is  the  harbinger  of 
the  summer  of  the  Christian  era :  "  From  the  rising  of  the 
sun  even  unto  the  going  down  of  the  same  my  name  ia 
great  among  the  Gentiles ;  and  in  every  place  incense  is 
offered  unto  my  name,  and  a  pure  meat  offering."^  Such 
psalms  may  be  regarded  as  a  counterbalance  to  the  possibly 
necessary  but  somewhat  repulsive  severity  of  the  policy 
pursued  by  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  towards  foreigners  in 
insisting  on  separation  from  heathen  wives,  and  in  refusing 
to  the  Samaritans  a  share  in  the  work  of  rebuilding  the 
walls  of  Jerusalem.  Other  psalms,  it  must  be  admitted, 
seem  to  be  animated  by  the  same  exclusive  spirit — the 
vindictive  psalms  we  call  them,  which,  viewed  as  the 
utterances  of  a  private  individual,  present  a  hard  problem 
to  the  Christian  mind.  What,  we  are  apt  to  ask,  can  the 
Spirit  of  God  have  to  do  with  a  prayer  like  this:  "  Let  them 
be  confounded  and  put  to  shame  that  seek  after  my  soul : 
let  them  be  turned  back  and  brought  to  confusion  that 
devise  my  hurt  Let  them  be  as  chaff  before  the  wind: 
and  let  the  angel  of  the  Lord  chase  them"?'  Probably  the 
true  view  to  take  of  these  psalms  is  to  regard  the  writer  as 
personating  the  chosen  people,  and  as  complaining  of  wrongs 
done  to  her  by  pagan  oppressors.*  It  must  be  acknoiv- 
ledged  that  the  tone  of  such  psalms,  even  when  so  viewed, 
stands  in  marked  contrast  to  the  spirit  of  Deutero-Isaiah 
when  he  represents  the  servant  of  Jehovah  as  a  light  to 
the  Gentiles.  It  is  one  of  the  dark  shadows  cast  on  the 
sacred  page  by  the  legal  dispensation. 

Another  of  these  shadows  may,  perhaps,  be  found  in 
certain  psalms  which  complain  of  disaster  coming  upon 
Israel,  notwithstanding  her  innocence  of  all  unfaithfulness 
to  God.     "  All  this  is  come  npon  us ;  yet  have  we  not 

'  M»L  i.  11.  '  Pi.  xzzt.  4.  6. 

'  So  Professor  Robertson  Smith  In  articla  on  "  Pudma  "  ta  Xneifdop«edim 

Britannica. 


JUDAISM.  275 

forgotten  Thee." '  Such  national  self  -  consciousness  of 
rectitude  seems  more  in  keeping  with  the  spirit  of  the 
Bcrihes  than  with  that  of  the  prophets,  and  may  plausibly 
be  viewed  as  a  forerunner  of  Pharisaism.  But  the  inference, 
though  natural,  is  not  certain.  In  such  psalms  as  the  49th 
and  73rd  we  meet  with  the  same  problem  in  reference  to 
individual  life.  Psalmists  conscious  of  moral  integrity 
complain  of  suffering  at  the  hands  of  evil  men,  and  want 
to  know  what  it  all  means.  But  prophets  like  Jeremiah, 
whom  we  do  not  suspect  of  self-righteousness,  do  the  same 
thing.  And  we  should  regard  it  as  one  of  the  merits  of 
these  prophets,  and  of  the  author  of  the  book  of  Job,  that 
rising  superior  to  all  spurious  humility  they  have  the  courage 
to  propound  the  question,  Why  do  righteous  men  suffer  ? 
Demure  piety,  sophisticated  in  its  moral  sentiments  by  an 
artificial  and  abstract  theology,  would  be  apt  to  say:  No 
such  case  can  happen,  for  there  is  none  righteous ;  all  who 
suffer,  suffer  for  their  sins.  Such  abject  self-condemnation 
is  much  more  akin  to  Pharisaism  than  the  manly  yet 
modest  self-approval  of  a  Jeremiah  or  a  Job.  But  if  a 
prophet  might  without  morbid  egotism  pass  a  favourable 
judgment  upon  himself,  surely  a  psalmist  might  with  still 
less  risk  of  Pharisaic  complacency  form  a  favourable 
estimate  of  the  moral  and  religious  condition  of  his  fellow- 
countrymen,  and  say :  On  the  whole  they  have  been  in  the 
right  path,  yet  behold  how  they  suffer !  * 

The  foregoing  considerations  may  suflBce  to  convince  as 
that  Judaism,  whatever  its  defects  and  tendencies,  was  a 
legitimate  phase  of  the  religion  of  revelation.  It  remains 
to  inquire  how  far  the  transposition  of  the  law  tt  it  lies 
before  us  in  the  Pentateuch,  from  the  time  of  Mo»o«  to  the 
time  of  Ezra,  affects  New  Testament  verdicts  on  ^he  legal 
economy.  These  are  that  the  law  was  subordi/^..te  to  the 
promise,  and  came  in  after  it  to  prepare  nen  for  the 
reception  of  the  promise ;  and  that  it  was  a   failure  as  a 

*  Pk.  zliv. ;  vide  also  Ps.  bcdy. 

*  On  the  defects  of  Old  Testament  piety  vid«  chap.  z.  of  this  Book. 


276  APOLOGETIOS. 

means  of  attaining  righteousness  and  acceptance  with  God, 
not  merely  on  account  of  man's  sin,  as  Paul  taught,  but  on 
account  of  its  intrinsic  weakness  and  unprofitableness,  its 
sacrificial  system  being  totally  unfit  to  deal  effectually  with 
human  guilt  and  to  bring  men  near  to  God, — the  doctrine 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  Being  a  demonstrated 
failure,  the  old  legal  covenant,  it  was  held,  must  pass  away, 
and  give  place  to  the  new  covenant  prophesied  of  by 
Jeremiah.  These  peremptory  judgments  were  pronounced 
by  the  inspired  teachers  of  the  Christian  faith  on  the 
traditional  understanding  that  the  whole  law  of  the  Penta- 
teuch was  Mosaic.  It  is  only  when  we  keep  in  view  this 
fact  that  we  can  fully  appreciate  the  moral  courage  required 
to  assert  these  positions  in  presence  of  an  idolatrous  rever- 
ence for  religious  customs  believed  to  be  of  very  ancient 
and  divine  origin.  Had  the  apostles  shared  modern  critical 
views  they  might  have  taken  their  stand  on  the  late  and 
human  origin  of  the  system,  and  said :  Leviticalism  is  not 
of  Moses  or  of  God ;  it  is  the  work  of  Ezra  and  other 
unknown  priests  in  Babylon,  therefore  it  has  no  great 
claims  on  our  respect.  A  much  easier  thing  to  say  than : 
it  is  of  Moses  and  of  God,  nevertheless  it  has  been  proved 
to  be  worthless  except  as  a  means  of  preparing  men  foj 
something  better,  therefore  it  must  pass  away. 

The  supposed  late  origin  of  the  Levitical  law  as  a  written 
code  does  not  in  the  least  detract  from  the  validity  of  these 
New  Testament  verdicts,  but  rather  strengthens  it  If  they 
hold  good  as  against  a  law  emanating  from  Moses,  h  fortiori 
they  hold  good  against  a  law  which  came  into  force  nearly 
a  millennium  later,  and  at  the  Christian  era  might  still  be 
regarded  as  a  comparative  upstart  The  important  principle 
enunciated  by  Paul,  that  the  law  was  subordinate  to  the 
promise  and  came  in  after  it,  and  between  it  and  the 
promise,  obviously  holds  on  the  critical  hypothesis.  It 
receives  under  that  hypothesis  a  double  exemplification. 
The  Mosaic  legislation  came  in  after  the  call  of  Abraham, 
and  the  Levitical  legislation  came  in  after  the  promise  of  a 


/UDAisii.  277 

new  covenant  with  its  law  written  on  the  heart.  And 
there  were  two  experiments  to  be  made.  One  was  to  try 
whether  a  model  state  could  not  be  built  up  on  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Decalogue.  That  experiment  went  on  till  the 
tim^  of  Jeremiah,  when  it  had  become  clear  to  his  prophetic 
eye  that  it  had  ended  in  failure.  On  the  footing  of  a  law 
written  on  stone-tablets  a  righteous  nation  he  saw  was  not 
to  be  looked  for ;  what  was  wanted  was  a  law  written  on 
the  heart.  But  this  was  not  to  come  all  at  once.  Jere- 
miah was  six  centuries  in  advance  of  his  time.  Men  were 
not  going  to  accept  his  conclusion  without  a  convincing 
proof  that  there  was  no  other  way  of  it.  And  so  the 
exiles  returned  from  Babylon  not  with  a  simple  spiritual 
law  written  on  their  hearts,  but  with  an  elaborate  sacriiicial 
and  ceremonial  law  written  in  a  look.  Ezra  appears  with 
the  priestly  code  in  his  hand,  the  fruit  of  much  toil  carried 
on  through  years  spent  in  compiling,  redacting,  editing, 
and  supplementing  the  Torah  relating  to  worship  and 
kindred  matters.  On  the  basis  of  that  Torah  a  new 
experiment  was  to  be  made.  The  first  experiment  aimed 
at  a  righteous  nation,  the  second  at  a  holy  Church.  The 
second  experiment  was  a  more  ghastly  failure  than  even 
the  first.  The  result  was  Rabbinism  and  Pharisaism :  a 
people  technically  and  outwardly  holy,  really  and  inwardly 
altogether  unholy.  By  a  prophet  that  might  have  been 
foreseen  from  the  first.  But  the  foresight  of  the  wise  does 
not  render  superfluous  the  age-long  experiments  whereby 
truth  is  made  patent  to  all  the  world.  Eabbinism  had  to 
be  evolved  before  men  could  perceive  the  full  significance 
of  Jeremiah's  oracle  of  the  law  written  on  the  heart. 

This  breaking  up  of  the  one  experiment  into  two,  far 
from  making  the  apologetic  problem  of  the  justification  of 
God's  way  in  the  ages  of  preparation  harder,  seems  rather 
to  simplify  it.  If  the  whole  Pentateuchal  law  was  Mosaic, 
in  the  sense  not  merely  of  being  as  old  as  Moses,  but  of 
being  God's  word  to  Israel  through  Moses,  then  Jeremiah's 
verdict  on  the  Sinaitic  covenant  must  be  held  to  have  been 


278  APOLOGETICS. 

pronounced  in  view  of  a  completed  historical  experiment  o< 
what  the  law  in  all  its  parts  was  worth.  There  was  in 
that  case  no  room  or  need  for  a  new  experiment.  The  new 
covenant  was  due,  and  should  have  come  fortliwith.  But 
in  what  light,  then,  are  we  to  regard  the  four  or  five 
centuries  of  Israel's  history  between  Ezra  and  Christ  ? 
How  are  we  to  take  them  up  into  the  unity  of  the  divine 
plan  ?  They  seem  left  out  in  the  cold,  a  godless  unintel- 
ligible tract  of  time,  having  no  perceptible  connection  with 
the  history  of  revelation.  Take  it,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
Jeremiah's  verdict  is  pronounced  in  view  of  a  legal  pro- 
gramme in  which  the  priestly  code  had  no  part,  as  a 
divinely  appointed  system,  then  all  becomes  plain.  The 
past  history  of  Israel  had  shown  that  on  the  basis  of 
Mosaism  it  was  impossible  to  construct  a  really  righteous 
nation.  But  a  new  experiment  remained  to  be  made.  It 
had  to  be  shown  that  it  was  equally  impossible  by  means 
of  an  elaborate  ritual  to  produce  a  holy  ecclesia.  The 
originators  of  the  new  experiment  could  start  on  their 
career  with  heart  and  hope  just  because  it  was  new,  some- 
thing hitherto  untried.  Till  their  hope  had  been  demon- 
strated to  be  vain,  the  new  era  of  grace  could  not  come. 


CHAPTER   VIIL 

THE  NIOHT  OF  LEGALISM. 

LiTEKATURE. — Ewald,  Geschickte  des  Volkes  Israel,  Band  ir.; 
Kuenen,  The  Religion  of  Israel;  Robertson  Smith,  The  Old 
Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church  (2nd  edition) ;  Wellhausen, 
Die  Pharisder  und  die  Sadducder ;  Montet,  Essai  sur  le$ 
Origines  des  Partes  Sadduc^en  et  PJiarisien;  Schiirer,  Get- 
chichte  des  Jiidischen  Volkes  (translated  by  T.  &  T.  Clark)  j 
Drummond,  Philo  Jvdaeus;  Sack,  Die  Altjudische  Religion^ 
im  Uehergange  vom  Bibelthume  zum  Talmvdismus ;  Thomson, 
On  the  Books  which  Influenced  our  Lord  (Apocalyptic  Litera- 
ture) ;  Cheyne,  Bampton  Lectures  on  the  Fsalttr  (Lecture  vii 


THE   NIGHT   OP   LEGALISM.  279 

^n  the  Influence  of  the  Persian  Eeligion  on  Jndaiam) ;  Toy, 
Judaism  and  Christianity. 

I  ose  this  title  to  describe  the  state  of  religion  among 
the  Jewish  people  during  the  long  period  of  above  four 
hundred  years  which  elapsed  between  the  time  of  the 
prophet  Malachi  and  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era* 

The  name  is  in  every  respect  appropriate ;  even  in 
regard  to  the  comparative  scantiness  of  available  informa- 
tion. The  remark  applies  especially  to  the  first  division  of 
the  period,  that  during  which  the  Jews  were  under  the 
dominion  of  the  Persians.  Of  this  time,  covering  nearly  a 
century,  we  know  next  to  nothing.  The  one  event  con- 
nected with  it  of  interest  to  the  Bible  student  is  the 
production  of  the  books  of  Chronicles,  which  probably  took 
place  towards  the  close  of  the  Persian  period.*  This  work, 
in  which  the  books  of  Uzra  and  Nehemiah  seem  to  have 
been  originally  incorporated,  affords  an  interesting  glimpse 
into  the  way  in  which  pious  Jews  at  the  time  when  it  was 
written  regarded  the  past  history  of  their  nation.  It  is, 
properly  speaking,  not  a  history  of  Israel,  but  of  Jerusalem, 
or  of  the  religion  of  Jerusalem ;  giving  first  a  hasty  sketch 
of  ancient  history  to  the  time  of  David,  who  made  Jeru- 
salem the  capital  of  the  nation ;  then  the  history  of  the 
city  under  David  and  his  successors  till  the  Babylonish 
captivity ;  then  in  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  the  history  of  new 
Jerusalem;  the  whole  regarded  from  the  Levitical  point 
of  view.* 

The  period  now  to  be  considered  was  deprived  of  the 
light  of  prophecy.  With  Malachi  the  sun  of  Hebrew 
prophecy  set,  not  to  rise  again  till  John  the  Baptist 
appeared.  Psalmists  living  in  that  dark  time  uttered  the 
complaint :  "  There  is  no  more  any  prophet."  •  Psalmists 
were  indeed  the  only  thing  approaching  to  prophets  forth- 

*  Ewald  thinks  it  vd.%j  have  been  written  about  the  time  of  the  death  of 
Alexander  the  Great,  which  oooorred  in  828  B.O.  Vidt  hit  OaehiehU  de$ 
Voltes  Israel,  L  251. 

•  So  Ewald,  OemMehte,  L  SM.  »  Fa.  Izzfr.  ft 


280  APOLOGETICS. 

coming  in  those  years.  Their  sacred  odes  were  the  glitter- 
ing  starlight  of  the  long  winter  night.  What  a  calamity 
this  disappearance  of  prophetic  inspiration  to  a  people  that 
had  once  listened  to  the  oracles  of  an  Isaiah  and  a  Jere- 
miah !  It  was  all  the  greater  a  calamity  if  the  later 
generations  did  not  know  how  much  they  had  lost.  This 
appears  to  have  been  the  actual  fact.  The  age  of  the  hier- 
ocracy,  when  priests  and  scribes  bore  rule,  not  only  failed 
to  produce  new  prophets,  but  became  incapable  of  appre- 
ciating the  old  ones.  Speaking  broadly,  the  great  prophets 
were  neglected  during  the  night  of  legalism.  Their 
prophecies  were  indeed  collected  for  preservation  and 
assigned  a  place  among  the  sacred  writings.  But  that 
place  was  second,  not  first.  The  law  alone  was  emphatically 
Scripture ;  all  else  was  of  secondary  moment.  The  spirit  of 
the  age  even  in  Palestine  was  out  of  sympathy  with 
prophetism,  and  for  Alexandrian  Judaism  it  had  almost  no 
meaning/ 

Why  did  no  prophets  appear  in  those  centuries  ?  Was 
it  merely  an  unhappy  chance,  or  was  it  a  divine  judgment  ? 
It  was  neither ;  it  was  rather  the  result  to  be  expected  at 
the  stage  at  which  the  development  of  Israel's  religion  had 
arrived.  There  was  nothing  more  to  be  said  on  Old  Testa- 
ment lines.  The  next  thing  to  be  said  was  the  word 
spoken  by  Jesus  to  the  woman  of  Samaria,  that  local, 
national,  and  ritual  worship  must  cease,  and  give  place  to 
a  universal  worship  of  the  spirit.  But  the  hour  for  saying 
that  had  not  yet  come.  Prophets  do  not  speak  till  they 
must.  They  do  not  arise  tOl  they  are  sorely  needed,  and 
then  they  come  and  give  voice  to  the  burden  that  is  on  the 
heart  of  all  like  minded  with  themselves.  Such  a  crisis 
could  only  come  after  legalism  had  had  full  time  to  bear 
its  proper  fruit.  At  first,  like  monasticism  in  the  Christian 
Church,  it  appeared  altogether  a  good  thing,  and  commended 
itself  to  the  general  religious  consciousness.  Psalmists 
longed  for  the  return  of  the  sacred  seasons,  and  were  glad 

^  VitU  Biehm,  AUtestattieiUliche  Theciogit^  p.  MS. 


THB  NIGHT  OF  LEOAUSM.  281 

when  these  came  round  and  summoned  them  to  go  up  to 
the  house  of  Jehovah.*  They  sang  the  praises  of  the  law, 
declaring  that  it  was  perfect,  converting  the  soul  and  giving 
wisdom  to  the  simple,*  The  Chronicler  was  heart  and  soul 
interested  in  the  temple  service.  He  delighted  especially 
in  the  temple  music,  and  lost  no  opportunity  of  referring 
to  it  in  his  narrative.  He  took  pains  to  give  the  Levites 
all  due  honour.  He  so  discharged  the  ofiBce  of  historian 
that  in  his  pages  the  Levitical  law  seems  to  be  in  full  force 
even  in  the  old  times  of  David  and  Solomon.  Obviously 
the  time  for  pronouncing  the  law  weak  and  unprofitable, 
and  the  Levitical  religion  incapable  of  perfecting  the 
worshipper  as  to  conscience,  is  not  yet  come.  The  priests 
and  the  scribes  are  in  the  ascendant,  and  must  do  their  best 
and  their  worst 

The  scribes  had  very  varied  and  apparently  very  useful 
work  to  do.  One  task  obviously  lying  to  their  hand  was 
that  of  multiplying  copies  of  the  book  of  the  law  which 
Ezra,  the  father  of  their  order,  had  written  out  in  Babylon 
and  brought  with  him  to  Jerusalem.  The  transcription, 
collection,  and  editing  of  other  valuable  writings,  such  as 
those  containing  the  oracles  of  the  prophets,  may  be 
regarded  as  a  natural  and  probable  extension  of  their  work. 
In  the  book  of  Neheraiah  reference  is  made  to  the  prophets 
in  terms  which  very  fully  acknowledge  their  importance  as 
God's  messengers  to  testify  against  the  sin  of  Israel,*  and 
which  may  be  assumed  to  imply  acquaintance  with  their 
writings.  In  the  second  book  of  Maccabees,  indeed,  Nehe- 
miah  himself  is  credited  with  the  founding  of  a  library  in 
which  the  prophetic  writings  were  included.*  There  is 
nothing  improbable  in  the  statement;  neither  is  it  im- 
probable that  the  Levites,  into  whose  mouth  the  prayer 
containing  the  reference  to  the  prophets  in  the  book  of 

»  Pa,  oxxil.  «  Ps.  xlx.  »  Neh.  ix.  80. 

*  Chap.  iL  18.  The  Btatement  is  that  Nehemiah  "founded  a  library  and 
eollected  the  (books)  concerning  the  kings  and  prophets,  and  the  (booka) 
tf  David  and  letters  of  kings  about  sacred  gifts." 


282  APOLOGETICS. 

Nehemiah.  is  put,  and  the  scribes,  whose  chief  interest  and 
occupation  was  about  the  law,  set  sufficient  value  on  the 
utterances  of  the  prophets  to  desire  their  preservation,  and 
to  take  some  trouble  for  that  purpose.  And  so  we  may 
legitimately  conceive  of  the  guild  of  the  scribes  aa  not 
only  copyists  and  editors  of  the  law,  but  also  as 
collectors  and  editors  of  books  of  religious  value,  deemed 
sacred,  though  by  no  means  put  on  a  level  with  the 
Pentateuch. 

Another  very  necessary  department  of  scribe- work  was  the 
interpretation  of  the  law.  The  law  of  the  Lord  might,  as  the 
Psalmist  said,  be  perfect,  but  it  is  not  easy  to  construct  a  code 
of  rules,  however  numerous  and  exactly  expressed,  that  shall 
be  so  complete,  unambiguous,  and  self-consistent  throughout, 
as  to  make  further  legislation  unnecessary  and  commentary 
superfluous.  The  law  of  the  Pentateuch  was  certainly  not 
of  that  character.  It  contained  bodies  of  law,  apparently 
of  different  ages,  difficult  to  reconcile  with  each  other,  and 
though  when  added  together  the  rules  of  conduct  in  all 
departments  of  life  were  multitudinous,  they  still  proved  to 
be  insufficient  for  men's  guidance  in  all  particular  instancea 
There  was  urgent  need  either  for  new  legislation  or  for 
dexterous  interpretation.  The  scribes  did  not  dare  to 
assume  openly  the  rdle  of  legislators:  they  adopted  the 
safer  line  of  the  interpreter,  and  manufactured  new  laws 
under  cover  of  explaining  the  old.  Hence  arose  the  oral 
law,  for  which  not  less  than  for  the  written  law  Mosaic 
origin  and  authority  was  claimed.  It  was  a  thing  of  evil 
omen,  destined  to  grow  to  portentous  dimensions,  and  to 
bear  pernicious  fruit.  And  yet  it  could  plead  utility,  not 
to  say  necessity.  What  was  the  oral  law  but  a  hedge  to  the 
written  law,  a  means  of  protecting  it  from  the  possibility 
of  transgression  ?  ^     This  business  of  hedging  once  begun 

'  In  the  Pirke-Abotb  the  men  of  the  Great  Synagogue  are  reported  to  hare 
■aid  three  things  :  Be  deliberate  in  judgment ;  raise  np  many  disciplet ;  make 
a  hedge  around  the  law.     These  sayings  indioata  th«  sdni  and  spirit  ti 

aoribism. 


THE   NIGHT   OF   LEGALISM.  283 

w&s  a  serious  affair.  The  law  itself,  as  reconstructed  by 
Ezra,  was  a  hedge  to  the  religion  of  Israel,  as  a  people  in 
covenant  with  God.  And  now  in  turn  it  was  discovered 
that  it  too  needed  a  hedge.  And  the  second  hedge 
needed  a  third,  and  the  third  a  fourth,  and  so  on  ad 
infinitum,  till  there  was  nothing  but  a  vast  expanse  of 
hedges,  and  the  thing  for  which  all  the  hedging  had 
taken  place,  the  true  worship  and  service  of  God,  had 
somehow  disappeared.  The  immense  development  of  con- 
centric hedge-work  found  its  historic  monument  in  the 
Talmud,  that  vast  pyramid  in  which  Judaism  lies  entombed. 
It  was  that  pyramid  the  scribes,  without  knowing  it, 
were  busy  building,  stone  upon  stone,  during  the  night  of 
legalism. 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  while  under  Persian 
dominion  the  Jews  came  under  Persian  influence  to  some 
extent  in  their  religion.  This  was  a  thing  likely  to 
happen.  For  the  Persians,  besides  being  a  friendly  people, 
had  a  kindred  religion.  Their  idea  of  God  was  similar 
to  that  of  the  Hebrew  prophets.  They  thought  of  the 
Supreme  Being  as  one  to  whom  moral  distinctions  were 
real  and  vital,  who  loved  righteousness  and  hated  unright- 
eousness. This  ethically-conceived  deity,  called  Ahura- 
Mazda,  was  for  them  the  one  true  God.  They  did  indeed 
set  over  against  the  good  and  wise  Spirit  another  spirit, 
whom  they  called  Angra-Mainyu,  the  evil-minded,  on  which 
account  it  has  been  customary  to  represent  the  ancient 
Persians  as  believers  in  a  dualism  rather  than  as  mono- 
dieists.  But  the  Persian  dualism  was  involuntary.  The 
pfTominence  given  in  the  Zend  religion  to  the  evil  spirit, 
source  and  maker  of  all  evil  things  in  the  world,  was  the 
result  and  proof  of  its  earnest  ethicalism.  The  Zoroas- 
trians  were  so  bent  on  maintaining  the  holiness*  and  good- 
ness of  God,  that  to  save  these  from  being  compromised 
they  were  willing  to  sacrifice  or  imperil  His  sovereignty  by 
setting  beside  Him  a  rival  deity,  a  sort  of  anti-god  who 
should  be  held  responsible  for  all  the  evil  that  was  in  the 


284  AFOLOOBnCS. 

univeree.'  They  held  it  to  be  the  duty  of  every  man  t« 
love  and  serve  the  good  Spirit,  and  to  hate  the  evil  spirit 
and  all  his  works.  Between  the  two  spirits  and  the  king- 
doms of  light  and  darkness  over  which  they  preside  there 
is  an  incessant  war,  and  all  men  must  choose  on  which  side 
they  are  to  be ;  and  well  for  the  man  who  chooses  the 
kingdom  of  Ahura-Mazda  and  his  righteousness,  and  strives 
to  advance  it  by  purity,  truth,  culture  of  the  soil,  and  the 
practice  of  family  duties,  and  who  fights  against  Angra- 
Mainyu,  hating  lies,  deceit,  adultery,  murder,  killing  noxious 
beasts,  and  carefully  preserving  the  lives  of  all  useful 
animals. 

From  a  religion  like  this,  with  an  exalted  idea  of  God, 
and  a  noble  ideal  of  human  life,  the  Jewish  people  wou'd 
not  feel  it  necessary  to  hold  aloof,  as  they  had  been  com- 
pelled to  hold  aloof  from  the  religion  of  their  Canaanite 
neighbours,  that  they  might  escape  moral  contamination. 
They  might  even  be  not  unwilling  to  learn  some  lessons  in 
religion  from  their  Persian  masters.  The  subjects  in  which 
they  may  be  supposed  to  have  received  instruction  are 
chiefly  these :  ceremonial  rules  of  purification,  Satan,  angels, 
and  the  resurrection  of  the  dead.  Now  that  there  is  a 
striking  resemblance  in  these  respects,  as  in  their  respec- 
tive ideas  of  God,  between  the  religions  of  the  two  peoples, 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  In  the  Persian,  as  in  the  Levitical 
religion,  uncleanness,  arising  from  contact  with  the  work 
of  the  evil  spirit,  such  as  death,  and  the  means  of  removing 
it,  occupy  a  prominent  place.  The  Hebrew  Satan  answers 
to  the  Persian  Angra-Mainyu.  The  Zend  religion  is  rich  in 
spirits  good  and  evil.  The  Zend-Avesta  swarms  with  spirits 
of  every  description,  with  uncouth  names  and  diverse  func- 
tions: Y§,tus,  Pairika,  Druants,  wizard  spirits,  spirits  of 
the  air,  storm  fiends — evil  spirits  all;  and  Yazatas  and 
Fravashis,  tutelary  spirits  for  the  days  of  the  month  and 

*  Darmesteter  says  that  in  the  Indo-Iranian  religion  there  was  ' '  a  latent 
monotheism  and  an  nnoonscious  dualism."  Translation  of  the  Zend  Avesta, 
Scuared  Books  qfthe  East,  toL  It.*  Introduction,  p.  IviL 


THE   NIGHT   OF   LEGALISM.  285 

for  particular  clans  and  neighbourhoods,  and,  highest  of  all, 
the  Amesha  Spentas,  the  seven  "undying  and  well-doing 
ones."  And  it  is  noticeable  that  in  the  later  books  of  the 
Old  Testament,  as  in  Zachariah  and  Daniel,  angelic  beings 
are  more  prominent  than  in  the  older  books.  Finally,  the 
doctrine  of  the  resurrection  is  common  to  the  two  religions, 
and  the  fact  is  all  the  more  remarkable  that  it  is  only  in 
those  books  of  the  Bible  which  critics  believe  to  have  been 
written  in  the  Persian  period,  or  still  later,  that  the  doctrine 
makes  its  appearance. 

Is  this  correspondence  due  to  borrowing  ?  It  is  a  ques- 
tion to  be  discussed  without  prejudice,  and  yet  to  be 
answered  with  caution.  We  have  no  cause  to  be  jealous 
of  the  influence  of  surrounding  peoples  on  the  religious 
opinions  of  the  Jews.  It  is  a  mere  question  of  fact.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  must  be  carefully  borne  in  mind  that 
mere  resemblance  does  not  prove  conscious  imitation  or 
borrowing  on  either  side.  Common  features  may  be  "  de- 
velopmental coincidences  "  *  in  religions  of  kindred  nature. 
It  is  natural  that  an  earnestly  ethical  religion  which  sees 
in  the  whole  history  of  the  world  a  struggle  between  good 
and  evil  should  in  the  course  of  its  historical  development 
evolve  a  doctrine  of  resurrection  and  eternal  judgment.  In 
the  same  way  Angra-Mainyu  and  Satan  may  be  a  case  of 
developmental  coincidence.  Every  kingdom  has  a  head; 
what  more  natural  than  that  a  religion  which  sees  in  the 
world  a  struggle  between  two  kingdoms  of  light  and  dark- 
ness should  provide  for  the  latter  kingdom  as  well  as  for 
the  former  a  head,  without  needing  to  go  to  a  foreign 
religion  in  quest  of  one  ?  The  resemblance  between  Satan 
and  Angra-Mainyu  is  not  the  thing  to  be  accounted  for,  but 
rather  their  difference ;  this,  viz.  that  Satan  and  his  kingdom 
are  not  independent  as  are  Angra-Mainyu  and  his  kingdom. 

Yet  withal  there  appear  to  be  distinct  traces  of  Persian 

*  This  most  snggestire  expression  in  borrowed  firom  Principal  Fairbaim  of 
Mansfield  College,  Oxford.  Vide  hia  £^udi«t  in  the  PhUoaophy  of  JReligion 
and  of  HisUMry,  p.  28. 


286  APOLOGETICai. 

influence  on  Jewish  religious  opinion,  at  least  in  the  depart- 
ment of  angelology.  The  very  names  of  spirits  which  figure 
in  the  later  Jewish  books  are  suggestive  of  this,  as,  e.g.,  Asmo- 
deus  in  the  book  of  Tobit,  which  is  simply  aeshma  daeva 
done  into  Greek.  And  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  how  it 
came  about  that  the  Jews  were  ready  to  welcome  Persian 
ideas  on  this  subject.  These  fitted  into  the  tendency  of 
later  Judaism  to  a  transcendent  conception  of  God.  That 
tendency  revealed  itself  from  the  first  in  Levitical  worship, 
as  reshaped  by  Ezra.  The  God  of  the  Levitical  cultus  is  a 
far-off  God.  He  keeps  Himself  aloof  from  sinful  men  in 
jealous  guardianship  of  His  holiness.  He  confines  Himself 
to  a  most  holy  place  into  which  no  one  but  the  high  priest 
may  enter,  and  he  only  once  a  year,  and  with  careful 
precautions,  while  ordinary  mortals  stand  without  waiting 
the  result  of  sacerdotal  mediation.  Aloofness  from  the 
world  is  but  an  extension  of  this  idea  of  a  far-off  God,  and 
angelic  mediation  between  the  Divine  Being  and  the  crea- 
tion is  parallel  to  high  priestly  mediation  between  the  Holy 
One  and  sinful  Israelites.  In  this  connection  the  altered 
version  of  the  numbering  of  the  people  by  David  in  the 
book  of  Chronicles  is  very  significant*  In  the  book  of 
Samuel  it  is  Jehovah  that  tempts  David ; '  in  Chronicles  it 
is  Satan.'  The  change  does  not  prove  that  Satan  is  an 
importation  from  Persia,  or  even  that  the  person  responsible 
for  the  change,  whether  the  Chronicler  or  the  unknown 
author  of  a  source  used  by  him,  was  consciously  influenced 
by  Persian  ways  of  thinking  regarding  God's  relation  to 
men's  sin.  But  it  does  prove  that  at  the  time  when  the 
book  of  Chronicles  was  compiled,  Jewish  ideas  concerning 
Grod  had  undergone  important  modification.  It  was  then 
felt  to  be  unseemly  to  bring  the  Divine  Being  into  so  close 
contact  with  man's  misconduct,  and  the  readiest  solution 
was  to  assign  the  function  of  the  tempter  to  Satan,  as  an 
intermediary  between  Jdliovali  and  David.  It  is  a  solution 
which  may  not  satisfy  us,  but  it  is  at  least  interesting  as 
1  2  Sna.  xiiT. ;  1  Chron.  xxL        »  2  Sam.  xxiy.  11.        »  1  Chron.  xxL  1. 


THB  NIQHT  OF   LEGALISM.  28*7 

supplying  unmistakable  evidence  of  the  existence  of  the 
tendency  above  referred  to  as  opening  a  door  through 
which  Persian  beliefs  about  the  spirit-world  might  find 
entrance  into  the  Jewish  mind.  The  God  of  Judaism,  the 
Chronicler  being  witness,  is  a  transcendent  Deity,  exalted 
by  His  holiness  far  above  human  sin,  presumably  exalted 
also  in  His  essential  being  above  the  creation ;  incapable  of 
having  anything  to  do  with  the  world  except  through 
mediators  human  or  angelic.  A  tendency  like  this,  once  it 
sets  in,  goes  on  till  it  reaches  its  natural  limit.  By  and 
by  it  will  be  deemed  improper  even  to  pronounce  God's 
name  as  it  had  once  been  current  in  Israel,  and  held  a 
mark  of  piety  to  call  Him  Elohim  or  Adonai  rather  than 
Jehovah.  Even  in  Ecclesiastes,  probably  of  later  origin 
than  Chronicles,  this  habit  appears  to  have  been  begun. 
The  name  Jehovah  does  not  once  occur  in  that  book,  and 
consistently  with  this  fact  God  is  spoken  of  as  "  He  that  is 
higher,"  ^  and  set  in  contrast  to  men  by  the  formula, 
"  God  is  in  heaven,  and  thou  upon  earth," '  In  Philo  the 
new  way  of  thought  culminates  in  a  conception  of  God  as 
the  unknowable  and  inexpressible,  incapable  of  relations 
with  the  universe,  except  through  angels  and  Powers,  and 
logoi  and  the  Logos,  semipersonal  beings  who  flit  through 
the  dim  world  like  owls  in  the  night.* 

Thus  far  we  have  had  no  occasion  to  think  of  the  Jews 
in  the  period  now  under  review  otherwise  than  as  a  united 
people  striving  with  one  mind  and  heart  to  make  God's 
law  the  rule  of  their  lives.  It  is  a  rare  community  that 
knows  no  divisions  in  religion.     The  Christian  Church  has 


^  Eodei.  T.  8.  *  Eccles.  r.  2. 

'  In  the  above  paragraphs  I  may  appear  to  treat  the  qnestion  of  Persian 
influence  unsympathetically,  but  I  do  not  wish  to  be  understood  as  restrict- 
ing that  influence  to  the  one  point  of  angels,  or  regarding  it  as  on  the  whole 
■inister.  I  am  quite  open  to  the  view  advocated  enthusiastically  by  Cheyne 
in  his  Bampton  Lectures  on  the  PicdUr  in  these  words :  "If  Talmudio 
esohatology  borrowed  something  fxoxa.  the  less  noble  parts  of  the  Persian 
religion,  must  not  the  psalmists,  with  their  finer  spiritual  taot,  have  wel- 
'wmed  the  help  of  its  nobler  teaching  T    Yes,  surely.     The  earlier  revelation 


288  APOLOOBnOGL 

had  ample  and  sorrowful  experience  of  strife  and  separafcioD 

caused  by  diversity  of  opinion  and  practice.  The  post- 
exilian  Jewish  Church  was  not  wholly  exempt  from  similar 
evils.  The  existence  of  serious  cleavage  became  apparent 
during  the  period  of  the  Greek  dominion,  when  the  Pharisee$ 
and  the  Sadducees  came  upon  the  scene  as  rival  parties  in 
religious  and  political  affairs.  The  origin  of  these  parties 
and  of  their  names  is  involved  in  obscurity ;  for  it  is  night, 
with  only  moonlight  at  the  best,  in  which  all  objects  are 
seen  but  dimly.  Practically,  it  was  a  cleavage  between 
the  scribes  and  the  priests;  and  when  we  consider  the 
occupations  of  these  two  claaaes,  their  respective  spheres  of 
influence,  and  the  tendenciw  naturally  arising  out  of  these, 
we  can  imagine  how,  long  before  it  came  to  an  open 
rupture,  they  fell  away  from  each  other  in  opinion,  feeling, 
and  interest.  The  priest  was  the  performer  of  routine 
religious  rites,  the  scribe  was  a  student  and  teacher  of  the 
law.  The  sphere  of  the  priest's  activity  was  the  temple, 
that  of  the  scribe's  was  the  synagogue.  Hence  arose  a 
difference  in  point  of  popularity ;  the  priest  met  the  people 
on  rare  occasions,  when  they  came  up  to  Jerusalem  at  the 
seasons  of  the  great  feasts ;  the  scribe  met  them  every  week 
on  Sabbath  days,  when  they  assembled  to  offer  prayer  and 
hear  the  Scriptures  read.  To  this  must  be  added  that  the 
priests  were  rulers  as  well  as  religious  officials.  The  high 
priest  was  the  prince  of  the  community,  holding  in  his  hands 
the  reins  of  power.  Hence  crept  into  priestly  families  and 
circles  aristocratic  feeling,  and  a  more  or  less  secular  spirit. 
The  scribes,  on  the  other  hand,  became  not  less  naturally 
the  representatives  of  democratic  and  religious  tendencies 

to  Iranian  thinkers  of  these  high  spiritual  truths,  the  universal  Lordship  ot 
God,  and  His  never-ending  relation  to  the  individual,  must  have  had  some 
providential  object  beyond  itself.  And  I  think  that  we  can  now  see  what 
that  object  was.  The  appointed  time  for  the  blending  of  the  Aryan  and 
Semitic  mind,  which  was  to  occupy  so  many  centuries,  had  come,"  p.  401. 
Benan  has  little  faith  in  the  Persian  influence.  He  says  the  Jew  in  Babylou 
went  about  with  his  eyes  shut  and  learned  nothing. — Sistoin  dn  PmipU 
sTIsmel,  iii.  440. 


THE   NIGHT  OF   LEGALISM.  289 

By  this  contrast  others  are  explained.  The  aristocratic 
temper  is  conservative  in  matters  of  opinion.  Hence  we 
are  not  surprised  to  learn  that  the  Sadducees,  who  were  the 
outgrowth  of  priestly  tendencies,  held  on  to  the  written 
law,  and  kept  aloof  from  the  oral  law  and  the  novelties  of 
the  schools,  and  further  that  they  shut  their  minds  to  the 
new  dogmas  concerning  angels  and  the  resurrection.  On 
this  side  the  priests  might  claim  to  be,  in  comparison  with 
the  scribes,  the  party  of  old  orthodoxy  adhering  closely  to 
the  ways  of  the  fathers.  But,  on  another  side,  they  were 
likely  to  appear  to  less  advantaga  Their  secularity,  arising 
out  of  the  exercise  of  government,  would  incline  them  to 
follow  foreign  customs  when  it  seemed  advisable  in  the 
interest  of  the  state.  This  accordingly  was  what  happened 
under  the  Greek  dominion.  The  priests  were  the  leaders 
in  the  process  of  Hellenisation,  while  the  scribes  were  the 
champions  of  Jewish  law  and  custom.* 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  latent  tendencies  of  the  two 
parties  should  come  to  the  surface  under  Greek  rule.  The 
ruler  was  near  at  hand,  not  far  away  as  in  the  case  of  the 
preceding  Persian  dominion.  The  Greek  was  in  the  land, 
dwelling  in  newly-founded  cities  bearing  Greek  names, 
enjoying  Greek  government,  and  fostering  within  them 
Greek  customs.  And  Greek  social  life  was  an  aggressive, 
infectious  thing,  appealing  to  the  senses,  attractive  and 
fascinating  to  all  lovers  of  pleasure.  Greek  culture,  too, 
was  bright,  rich,  and  beautiful,  standing  in  brilliant  contrast 
to  the  poverty  of  the  Semitic  world  in  all  that  belonged  to 
art,  science,  and  philosophy.  Here  was  a  situation  to  which 
the  Jewish  people  could  not  remain  indifferent.  They 
must  make  up  their  minds  either  to  surrender  to  the  new 
Western  influence,  or  to  harden  themselves  against  it.  Some 
took  the  one  course,  some  the  other ;  some  Hellenised,  some 
stood  loyally  by  old  Hebrew  ways.  In  their  philo-Greek 
enthusiasm  men  got  their  names  translated  from  Hebrew 

I  On  thifl  whole  sabjeot  Welllurasen's  Essay,  Die  PkaruHtr  tmd  dU  Smd- 
dveder,  u  specially  instractireb 

9r 


290  AP0L0OETI08. 

into  Greek,  and  did  their  best  to  obliterate  the  physical 
sign  of  their  connection  with  the  Jewish  race.  They  sacri- 
ficed to  idols,  profaned  the  Sabbath,  and  were  not  content 
till  they  had  obtained  permission  from  the  government  to 
found  a  gymnasium  in  Jerusalem.  And  in  this  wild,  god- 
less movement  of  apostacy  the  priests,  to  their  shame,  were 
the  ringleaders. 

Then  came  a  turn  in  the  tide  through  the  madness  of 
Antiochus  Epiphanes.  Perceiving  how  willing  many  of 
the  Jews,  including  some  of  the  most  influential  men  of 
the  nation,  were  to  become  Greeks,  he  was  misled  into 
thinking  that  the  whole  people  were  prepared  for  the 
wholesale  obliteration  of  everything  distinctively  Jewish. 
Orders  were  issued  accordingly,  the  execution  of  which 
created  a  great  reaction.  It  turned  out  that  not  only  the 
scribes  and  multitudes  of  the  people,  but  not  a  few  among 
the  priests,  were  prepared  to  resist  the  process  of  de- 
nationalisation to  the  death.  The  hero  of  the  patriotic 
revolt  was  Judas  Maccabaeus,  and  the  result  the  triumph  of 
the  faithful  in  Israel  over  their  pagan  foes.  The  war 
ended,  the  union  brought  about  by  the  dire  crisis  between 
priests  and  scribes  also  came  to  an  end.  Each  party  once 
more  followed  its  proper  bent.  Sadducees  and  Pharisees 
struggled  for  ascendency,  fighting  with  each  other  not  less 
violently  than  they  had  fought  together  against  the  common 
enemy.  Neither  could  claim  to  be  a  worthy  representa- 
tive of  the  religion  of  Israel  Ambition  played  a  large 
place  among  the  ruling  motives  of  their  conduct  More  or 
less  corrupt  in  spirit  to  begin  with,  they  produced  in  each 
other,  by  their  party  antagonism,  ever-increasing  moral 
deterioration ;  till  at  length,  a  century  and  a  half  after  the 
time  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  they  had  become  what  we 
see  them  in  the  Gospels :  utterly  opposed  to  each  other  in 
belief  and  policy,  yet  alike  ungodly  in  spirit,  and  entire 
aliens  from  that  divine  kingdom  whose  advent  Jesos 
proclaimed. 

In  the  judgment  of  many  modem  eritics,  fhe  time  of 


THE  NIGHT   OF   LEGALISM.  291 

trouble,  which  gave  to  the  Jewish  people  a  hero  in  the 
person  of  Judas  Maccabaeus,  also  enriched  their  sacred 
literature  by  the  addition  to  it  of  the  book  of  Daniel.  If 
this  view  be  correct,  then  that  book  is  of  the  apocalyi)tic 
type;  that  is  to  say,  it  presents  what  is  really  history 
under  the  form  of  prophecy  uttered  by  a  personage  of 
great  name,  who  lived  long  before  the  actual  author's  time. 
As  such,  it  belongs  to  a  class  of  literature  much  inferior 
to  the  collection  of  oracles  uttered  by  the  great  prophets, 
who  ever  spoke  in  their  own  name  what  God  had  revealed 
to  their  own  spirit.  But  it  is  a  great  book,  worthy  of  a 
place  in  the  Hebrew  canon,  well  fitted  to  serve  the  imme- 
diate object  of  nerving  a  persecuted  people  to  heroic 
endurance,  and  memorable  and  valuable  for  all  time  as 
the  first  attempt  to  grasp  the  history  of  the  world  as  one 
great  whole,  "  as  a  drama  which  moves  onward  at  the  will 
of  the  Eternal  One."*  It  is  the  brightest  light  of  the 
night  of  legalism,  greatly  superior  in  value,  if  one  may 
make  comparisons  between  canonical  books,  to  two  other 
late  additions  to  the  sacred  collection,  Ecclesiastes  and 
Esther ;  the  former  of  which  rather  serves  to  show  how 
deep  the  darkness  was  growing  than  to  throw  any  light  on 
the  problems  of  life,  while  the  latter,  as  a  literary  reflection 
of  a  Judaism  of  the  narrowest  type,  seems  to  lie  on  the 
outermost  fringe  of  what  rightfully  belongs  to  the  category 
of  the  canonical  And  as  for  the  other  apocalyptic  books 
that  were  kept  out  of  the  canon,  they  are  not  worthy  to  be 
mentioned  alongside  of  Daniel  They  are,  it  has  been 
truly  observed,  "  in  the  unfavourable  sense  of  the  word, 
works  of  art ;  they  smell  of  the  lamp ;  it  is  no  living, 
animated  conviction  that  speaks  in  them,  and  therefore 
they  are  altogether  unfit  to  arouse  enthusiasm." '  When 
or  by  whom  they  were  written  is  unknown ;  it  has  been 
suggested  that  they  proceeded  from  the  fraternity  of  ascetics 
that  lived  in  retirement  from  the  world  by  the  shores  of 

>  Kaenen.  Tlu  JUligion  ^  l*rad,  iii.  111. 
*  ibid.  iiL  114. 


292  APOLOOBTICS. 

the  Dead  Sea,  known  by  the  name  of  the  Essenes}  Be  this 
as  it  may,  one  thing  is  certain :  such  books  cannot  possibly 
have  exercised  a  decisive  influence  on  the  religious  thought 
of  Jesus.  No  man  now  can  read  the  book  of  Enoch,  the 
best  of  the  class,  except  as  a  task  connected  with  some 
special  line  of  study,  and  it  was  probably  little  less  dreary 
reading  at  the  beginning  of  our  era.  Jesus,  at  all  events, 
drew  His  inspiration  from  a  very  different  source.  Isaiah, 
especially  Isaiah  the  second,  was  more  to  His  taste  than 
these  fantastic  apocalypses.  A  stray  phrase  may  have 
found  its  way  into  His  vocabulary  from  that  quarter,  but 
beyond  this  an  influence  emanating  thence  is  not  dis- 
cernible in  the  Gospels. 

The  apocalyptic  literature  revived  after  a  fashion  the 
Messianic  hope,  and  for  this,  perhaps,  we  ought  to  be 
grateful.  But  when  we  study  more  closely  the  presenta- 
tion therein  given  of  the  Messianic  age,  we  are  conscious 
only  of  a  limited  sense  of  indebtedness.  In  some  respects, 
indeed,  there  appears  to  be  an  advance  beyond  the  stand- 
point of  the  great  prophets.  The  view,  for  example,  is 
extended  from  the  nation  to  the  world.  The  individual 
also  comes  more  to  the  front  as  the  recipient  of  blessing, 
the  boon  promised  being  resurrection  to  everlasting  life. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  summum  honum  becomes  here 
transcendent ;  it  is  transferred  to  the  world  to  come,  and 
has  no  place  among  the  realities  of  the  present  world. 
Finally,  in  the  apocalyptic  presentation  of  the  Messianic 
hope  we  pass  from  the  poetry  of  the  prophets  to  the  dull, 
dogmatic  prose  of  the  scribes.*  Eeading  an  apocalytic 
picture  of  the  good  time  coming  does  not  affect  us  like 
reading  the  sixtieth  chapter  of  Isaiah.     The  latter  thrills, 

^  So  Thomson  {Books  which  Influenced  our  Lord  cmd  Hit  Apoatiet)  after 
Hilgenfeld.  The  Egsenes  are,  as  Cheyne  in  his  Bampton  Lecture*  on  the 
Psalter  well  expresses  it,  "twilight  figures"  (p.  421),  and  of  their  con- 
nection with  the  apocalyptic  literature  there  is  little  or  no  evidence. 

*  On  the  Messianic  hope  of  the  period  of  the  scribes  compared  with  that 
of  the  prophets,  vide  especially  Schiirer,  Th»  Jewi$h  PeopU  in  tkt  TitM  q/ 
/e*u$  Christ,  Dir.  II.  toI.  ii.  p.  180  ff. 


THB  KIOHT   OF   LEGALISM.  293 

eonsolea,  moves  to  tears ;  the  former  makes  us  melancholy. 
Scholars  may  revive  a  professional  interest  in  apocalyptic, 
and  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  the  exegete  of  the  New 
Testament  may  learn  something  from  their  labours  ;  but 
the  great  heart  of  humanity  has  only  one  duty  to  perform 
towards  it,  and  that  is  to  consign  it  to  oblivion. 

An  account  of  the  religion  of  Israel  during  the  period 
now  under  review  would  not  be  complete  without  a  brief 
reference  to  the  Jews  scattered  abroad  over  the  Gentile 
world.  The  Diaspora,  or  dispersion,  covered  a  wide  area 
from  Babylon  to  Asia  Minor,  but  its  chief  seat  was  the 
Greek  city  of  Alexandria,  in  Egypt,  wherein  a  large  number 
of  Jews  found  a  home  under  the  friendly  reign  of  the 
Ptolemies.  The  phenomenon,  therefore,  which  above  all 
invites  attention  in  this  connection  is  Hellenism ;  that  ia, 
Jewish  religious  thought  as  coloured  by  Greek  influence  in 
that  great  centre  of  Greek  culture.  Two  facts  of  out- 
standing importance  are  associated  with  the  movement: 
the  use  of  the  Greek  language  as  an  instrument  for  the 
diffusion  of  Judaism,  and  the  use  of  Greek  philosophy  as 
an  instrument  for  its  dissipation. 

The  Jews  resident  in  Alexandria,  as  a  natural  result 
of  their  intercourse  with  the  Greeks,  soon  became  Greek- 
speaking.  An  inevitable  consequence  of  this  was  that  a 
demand  soon  arose  among  them  for  a  translation  of  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures  into  their  adopted  tongue.  The  result 
was  the  Septuagint.  Marvellous  tales  came  into  circula- 
tion at  a  later  date  respecting  the  circumstances  under 
which  this  famous  version  was  executed.  The  truth  seemg 
to  be  that  it  was  produced,  not  by  the  authority  and  under 
the  patronage  of  kings  or  high  priests,  but  by  private  enter- 
prise, in  response  to  the  general  wish  of  the  Alexandrian 
Jews,  and  to  meet  their  religious  needs.  It  was  a  work 
of  time,  the  translation  of  the  law,  as  the  most  important 
part  of  Scripture,  being  first  undertaken ;  that  of  other 
portions  following  in  due  course.  The  great  work  was 
begun  probably  about  the  middle  of  the  third  century  B.C.. 


294  APOLOGETICS. 

and  had  reached  completion  by  the  year  132  RC,  as  we 
learn  from  the  son  of  Sirach,  who  visited  Egypt  at  that 
time,  and  found  there  a  Greek  version  of  "  the  law,  and  the 
prophecies,  and  the  rest  of  the  books."  ^  The  end  aimed 
at  was  primarily  the  edification  of  Greek-speaking  Jews, 
but,  doubtless,  through  the  Greek  Bible  many  Gentiles 
became  acquainted  with  the  religion  of  the  remarkable 
people  that  had  settled  among  them. 

The  Septuagint  has  been  carefully  searched  for  traces  of 
the  influence  of  Greek  philosophy  on  the  mind  of  the 
translators.  What  we  do  find  is  clear  evidence  that  the 
translators  were  not  uninfluenced  by  the  change  that  had 
come  over  their  countrymen  in  Palestine  in  their  way  of 
thinking  concerning  God.  There  is  the  same  tendency 
that  we  have  noted  in  Leviticalism,  and  in  some  of  the 
later  books  of  Scripture,  to  conceive  of  God  as  transcendent, 
far  away  above  the  world  and  human  sin  and  infirmity. 
For  Jehovah  the  translators  substitute  "  the  Lord,"  o  xvpio's. 
All  anthropopathisms  and  anthropomorphisms  in  the 
original  they  carefully  soften  down.  "  God  repented " 
is  rendered  "  God  reflected " ;  *  the  statement  that  the 
elders  of  Israel  saw  God  is  transformed  into  "saw  the 
place  where  God  stood,"  *  and  the  privilege  of  Moses  to  see 
God's  form  becomes  a  privilege  to  see  His  glory.* 

With  all  its  defects,  the  Greek  version  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  was  an  important  service  rendered  to  the  religion 
of  Israel.  The  employment  of  Greek  philosophy  as  an 
instrument  of  thought  and  vehicle  of  the  Jewish  faith  was 
of  more  doubtful  value.  A  full  account  of  this  movement 
cannot  here  be  given.  We  see  it  in  the  initial  stage  in 
the  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  in  which  God  is  represented  as 
creating  the  world  out  of  formless  matter,  as  a  previously 
existing  datum,**  and  the  body  of  man  is  spoken  of  as  the 
seat  of  sin,  pressing  down  the  soul  and  hindering  the  free 

'  Ftie  Prologae  to  the  Wisdom  0/ Siraeh. 

*  Gen.  vi  «.  "Ex.  xxiv.  10.  *  Num.  xBL  %. 

"  Vi  JiftifP-  Sxw,  tL  18. 


THB  NIGHT   OV   LEGALISM.  895 

exercise  of  thought.'  It  reached  its  consummation  in 
Philo,  a  contemporary  of  Jesus  *  whose  manner  of  conceiv- 
ing God  has  been  abeady  indicated."  Philo  was  a  gifted 
and  cultured  Jew  spoiled  by  being  transformed  into  a 
second-rate  Greek  philosopher.  As  a  thinker,  he  was  a 
Jew  in  form  and  a  Greek  in  spirit  He  was  a  cross 
between  Moses  and  Plato.  He  took  his  texts  from  Moses, 
and  delivered  on  them  sermons  full  of  Platonic  ideas  and 
un-Platonic  rhetoric.  For  what  we  find  in  his  writings  is 
Plato  at  second  hand,  and  very  degenerate.  Between  his 
turgid  discourses  and  Plato's  exquisitely  graceful  dialogues 
there  is  as  great  a  difference  as  between  Jewish  apocalyptic 
and  Hebrew  prophecy.  There  is  no  true  originality  and 
inspiration  in  him.  He  is  a  brilliant  yet  barren  writer, 
who  will  found  no  school  and  communicate  enthusiasm  to 
no  susceptible  reader.  The  time  at  which  he  was  born, 
and  his  considerable  importance  in  the  eyes  of  his  con- 
temporaries, might  suggest  the  question.  Can  this  be  he 
who  should  come  ?  But  one  has  only  to  peruse  a  few 
pages  of  his  voluminous  writings  to  be  satisfied  that  who- 
ever was  destined  to  put  the  crown  on  Israel's  religious 
development  it  was  not  Philo.  No  deliverance  was  to 
come  to  the  Jews  or  to  the  world  from  that  quarter. 

Philo  and  the  scribes  were  very  unlike  each  other,  yet 
there  was  one  bond  of  connection  between  them.  How- 
ever wide  apart  their  respective  ways  and  goals,  they 
had  the  same  starting-point  They  both  ascribed  divine 
authority  to  the  law,  and  professed  to  derive  all  they 
taught  from  that  sacred  source.  Out  of  it  Philo  educed 
Greek  philosophy ;  the  scribe,  the  traditions  of  the  elders. 
It  was  possible  to  arrive  at  so  diverse  results  through  the 
employment  of  different  methods  of  interpretation.  Philo's 
method  was  the  free  use  of  allegory ;  the  scribe's  was  a 
mechanical,  irrational  literalism.*     The  two  methods,  both 

•  Bom  probably  10  B.a  •  Vtde  p.  287. 

*  The  acribea  strore  to  snow  that  the  whole  of  the  traditional  law  ooold  be 


296  APOLOOBTICa. 

alike  vicious,  supply  instructive  examples  of  the  fatal  abuse 
of  a  sacred  text-book,  showing  how  what  might  have  been 
a  light  to  the  feet  became  an  ignis  fatuus,  and  a  rule  of 
faith  was  perverted  into  a  blind  guide  of  the  blind.  From 
these  instances  we  learn  that  no  book,  however  excellent, 
can  be  a  self-acting  infallible  guide,  and  that  all  depends  on 
how  it  is  used.  The  higher  the  authority  ascribed  to  it 
the  more  it  will  mislead,  if  false  reverence  be  allowed  to 
extinguish  the  light  of  reason.  It  would  have  been  better 
for  the  Alexandrian  Jewish  philosophers  and  Palestinian 
scribes  to  have  discarded  the  Book,  and  to  have  taught  on 
their  own  authority.  Their  doctrine  would  have  been 
much  the  same  as  it  was,  and  they  would  have  been  saner 
and  honester  men.  Their  reverence  for  Scripture  was  a 
new  form  of  idolatry,  which  took  possession  of  the  Jewish 
people  after  they  had  finally  conquered  all  other  forms.  It 
proved  to  be  the  deadliest  of  alL  They  searched  the 
Scriptures,  and  the  more  they  searched  the  further  they 
erred  from  truth  and  Gkxi 

The  foregoing  sketch  of  the  religion  of  Israel  during  the 
centuries  intervening  between  the  Old  Testament  and  the 
New  is  very  disenchanting.  The  voice  of  prophecy  hushed ; 
scribism  in  the  ascendant ;  God,  partly  through  foreign 
influence,  become  transcendent  and  far-off;  the  evil  spirit 
of  sectarianism  making  its  appearance;  artificial  pseudo- 
prophetic  compositions  taking  the  place  of  genuine  prophetic 
oracles,  and  vapid  Alexandrian  rhetoric  superseding  grave 
Hebrew  eloquence ;  the  people  of  the  living  word  becoming 
the  people  of  the  Book  and  making  of  that  Book  a  fetich. 
Truly  a  dark  time,  in  which  even  the  brightest  mani- 
festation of  the  Hebrew  religious  spirit  was  of  very  mixed 
moral  worth,  the  Maccabsean  patriotic  movement  being 
by    no    means    an    exhibition    of    pure    devotion    to    the 

deduced  from  the  written  law.  The  feat  was  accomplished  by  aid  of  sevoi 
rules  of  interpretation  formulated  by  HiUel,  which  look  very  innocent,  but 
as  actually  employed  could  be  made  to  educe  any  conclusions  out  of  any 
premises.  Vide  Farrar's  BampUm  Lectures  on  the  Eittory  qf  ItUerpreta- 
tiont  p.  18. 


THE   OLD   TESTAMENT   LITERATURE.  297 

nniversal  interest  of  eternal  righteousness,  but  in  part  a 
semi- fanatical  outburst  of  zeal  for  national  customs  of 
merely  statutory  value.'  The  whole  picture  in  all  its 
aspects  is  a  trial  to  our  faith  in  the  religious  vocation  of 
Israel  If  Israel's  religion  was  of  special  concern  to  God 
how  was  it  allowed  to  come  to  this  ?  If  the  divine  spirit 
was  immanent  in  Israel's  religious  history,  whence  this 
tremendous  degeneracy  ?  The  phenomenon  has  its  parallel 
in  the  history  of  the  Christian  Church  which  presents,  in 
ecclesiastical  Christianity  as  compared  with  the  Christianity 
of  Christ,  a  contrast  not  less  glaring  than  that  between 
prophetism  and  scribism.  Such  declensions  are  facts  with 
which  faith  must  reconcile  itself  the  best  way  it  can. 
In  the  case  of  the  earlier  declension  the  feat  is  not 
impossible.  The  lapse  served  to  make  the  inherent  defect 
of  the  legal  system  signally  apparent,  and  so  prepared  the 
way  for  Jesus.' 


CHAPTEE   IX. 

THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  LITERATURE. 

Literature, — Butler,  Analogy  (Part  XL  Chapter  iii.) ; 
Pdcaut,  Le  Christ  et  la  Conscience ;  Eobertson  Smith,  The  Old 
Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church  (2nd  edition) ;  Simon,  The 
Bible  an  Outgrowth  of  Theocratic  Literature;  Ladd,  The 
Doctrine  of  Sacred  Scripture;  Gladden,  J^Fi^  wrote  the  Bible  ? 
Reuss,  Histoire  du  Canon  des  Sairdes-Ecritures  (translated) ; 
Buhl,  Kanon  und  Text  des  Alten  Testamentes  (translated  by 

^  On  thia  fact  Damiesteter  rests  hia  chief  argnment  against  Havet's  theory 
of  the  origin  of  the  prophetic  writings  in  the  Maccabaean  period.  The 
originality  of  the  prophets,  he  says,  "  is  precisely  that  they  are  not  con- 
•ervere  or  restorers  of  the  past,  as  were  the  Macsahees  ;  they  are  the  creators 
of  the  fdture.  They  are  the  apostles  of  a  new  faith  which  goes  to  elevate  the 
nation  above  the  brutalities  of  the  universe." — Le«  Prophiie^  d' Israel,  p.  132. 
He  also  remarks  truly  that  the  conqnerors  referred  to  in  the  prophetic 
writings  do  not  appear,  like  Antiochos  Epiphanes,  aa  tyrants  over 
conscience,  p.  180. 

*  Vide  on  this  Bielun.  AUUgiamentliche  TheologU,  p.  871. 


298  APOLOOEnOS. 

T.  &  T.  Clark);  Kirkpatrick,  The  Divine  Library  of  the 
Old  Testament;  Driver,  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of 
the  Old  Testament;  Eyle,  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament ^ 
1892. 

To  say  that  God  gave  a  special  revelation  to  Israel  is  not 
the  same  thing  as  to  say  that  He  gave  to  Israel  a  collec- 
tion of  sacred  books.  Revelation  and  the  Bible  are  not 
synonyms.  There  was  a  revelation  long  before  there  was 
a  Bible.  God  revealed  Himself  in  history  as  the  God  of 
the  whole  earth,  graciously  choosing  Israel  to  be  in  the 
first  place  the  recipient  of  the  supreme  blessing  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  true  God,  and  to  be  eventually  His 
instrument  for  communicating  that  knowledge  to  the  whole 
world.  He  revealed  Himself  as  a  gracious  electing  God  to 
the  consciousness  of  Israel,  through  spiritual  insight  into 
the  true  significance  of  her  history  communicated  to  the 
prophets ;  first  to  Moses,  and  then,  in  later  centuries,  to 
the  prophets  whose  oracles  have  been  preserved  in  books 
bearing  their  names.  The  election,  and  the  providential 
training  of  Israel,  and  the  gradually  attained  insight  into 
the  fact  and  purpose  of  the  election,  would  have  been  a 
most  important  self-revelation  of  God  though  a  literature 
of  revelation  never  had  arisen ;  and  it  would  have  accom- 
plished most  important  purposes,  though,  as  Bishop  Butler 
remarks,  not  all  the  purposes  which  a  recorded  revelation 
has  answered,  and  in  the  same  degree.*  Great  things  were 
done  by  God  in  Israel  before  the  Hebrew  Bible  came  into 
existence.  Nay,  one  might  say  that  the  best  days  of 
Israel  were  over  before  the  sacred  Book  appeared;  that 
Jehovah  was  more  manifestly  present  among  the  chosen 
people  when  she  was  the  people  of  the  living  Word, 
than  when  she  became  the  people  of  the  written  Book. 
The  people  of  the  Book  were  a  degenerate  people;  the 
emergence  of  the  Book  was  coincident  with  the  night  of 
legalism ;  and  the  use  made  of  it  was  to  a  large  extent 
idolatrous,  and  such  as  tended  to  hide  rather  than  reveal 

*  Analogy,  Part  II.  ohap.  iii. 


THE   OLD   TESTAMENT   UTERATURE.  299 

Gk)d ;  this,  however,  from  no  fault  of  the  Book,  but  rather 
from  the  fault  of  its  readers. 

While  all  this  is  true,  it  is  nevertheless  also  true  that 
given  a  revelation  such  as  God  communicated  to  Israel, 
a  literature  of  revelation,  though  not  a  matter  of  d  priori 
necessity,  was  a  highly  probable  consequence.  Record  of 
some  sort  might  be  pronounced,  in  a  broad  sense,  indis- 
pensable. The  record  might,  indeed,  conceivably  be 
merely  oral.  How  far  oral  tradition  would  have  been  an 
adequate  means  of  preserving  the  knowledge  of  God's  self- 
manifestations,  and  the  idea  of  God  these  embodied,  is  a 
question  of  subordinate  importance.  All  that  we  are 
concerned  to  maintain  at  present  is,  that  if  God  specially 
revealed  Himself  to  Israel  it  was  well  that  all  should  have 
knowledge  of  the  fact  and  of  the  mode  and  measure  of  the 
revelation  vouchsafed,  and  that  a  written  record,  if  not 
the  only  means  of  communicating  such  knowledge,  is  at 
least  a  most  valuable  means.  As  to  the  former  part  of 
this  thesis,  its  truth  is  recognised  in  the  familiar  words 
of  the  Psalter :  "  One  generation  shall  praise  Thy  works 
to  another,  and  shall  declare  Thy  mighty  acts.  I  will 
speak  of  the  glorious  honour  of  Thy  majesty,  and  of  Thy 
wondrous  works.  And  men  shall  speak  of  the  might  of 
Thy  terrible  acts :  and  I  will  declare  Thy  greatness.  They 
shall  abundantly  utter  the  memory  of  Thy  great  goodness, 
and  shall  sing  of  Thy  righteousness."  *  As  to  the  latter 
part  of  the  thesis,  the  Westminster  Confession  expresses 
itself  in  these  sober  terms :  "  Therefore  it  pleased  the 
Lord,  at  sundry  times,  and  in  divers  manners,  to  reveal 
Himself,  and  to  declare  that  His  will  unto  His  Church  ; 
and  afterwards  for  the  better  preserving  and  propagating 
of  the  truth,  and  for  the  more  sure  establishment  and 
comfort  of  the  Church  against  the  corruption  of  the 
flesh  and  the  malice  of  Satan  and  of  the  world,  to 
commit  the  same  wholly  unto  writing,  which  maketh 
Holy  Scripture  to  be  most  necessary,  those  former  ways 
» Pa.  cxIt.  4-7. 


300  APOLOGETICS. 

of  Gkxl'a  revealing  His  will  unto  His  people  being  now 
ceased."  * 

This  doctrine  may  be  regarded  as  beyond  question,  H 
the  words  "  most  necessary  "  be  taken  as  implying  a  very 
high  degree  of  utility,  amounting  to  a  practical  necessity. 
Only  when  they  are  so  interpreted  as  to  involve  the  dogma 
that  without  the  knowledge  of  Scripture  salvation  is 
absolutely  impossible,  are  they  fitted  to  create  a  prejudice 
such  as  finds  occasional  expression  in  the  sneers  at  the 
religion  of  Christendom  as  a  Book  revelation.  It  cannot 
be  denied  that  believers  in  the  incomparable  value  of  the 
Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  as  the  authentic 
records  of  divine  revelations,  have  not  always  been 
sufficiently  careful  to  avoid  giving  occasion  for  this 
unhappy  prejudice.  It  was  the  tendency  of  theologians 
in  the  scholastic  period  of  Protestantism  to  connect  the 
ideas  of  revelation  and  record  so  closely  together  as  to 
convey  a  false  impression  as  to  the  precise  function  of 
Scripture.  The  Bible  was  to  them  not  only  the  record  of 
revelation,  but  the  revelation  itself,  and  hence  acquaintance 
with  the  record  was  deemed  indispensable  to  participation 
in  the  benefit  of  revelation.  Unless  men  knew  the  written 
record,  God  might  as  well  never  have  revealed  Himself  so 
far  as  they  were  concerned.  An  interesting  illustration 
of  this  tendency  is  supplied  by  Eichard  Baxter.  Baxter 
and  Dr.  Owen  were  together  members  of  a  committee 
appointed  by  the  Parliament  which  made  Cromwell 
Protector  to  draw  up  a  list  of  fundamentals.  The  list  was 
intended  to  define  the  meaning  of  the  words  occurring  in  the 
instrument  of  government,  "  faith  in  God  by  Jesus  Christ,"  it 
being  laid  down  in  that  document  that  all  who  professed  such 
faith  should  have  liberty,  or  free  exercise  of  their  religion. 
The  divines  appointed  to  perform  the  momentous  task  of 
fixing  the  basis  of  religious  toleration,  very  soon  found,  in 
Baxter's  quaint  language,  "  how  ticklish  a  business  the 
enumeration  of  fundamentals  was."     Among  the  points  in 

'■  Ohap.  i.  8ecti(HiL  1. 


THE   OLD   TESTAMENT   LTTERATUEK.  301 

dispute,  according  to  our  informant,  was  this:  whether 
the  knowledge  of  Holy  Scripture  was  absolutely  necessary 
to  salvation.  Dr.  Owen  took  the  affirmative  side,  and 
wished  to  make  a  fundamental  of  the  dogma,  "that  no 
man  could  know  God  to  salvation  by  any  other  means," 
evidently  desiring  to  use  it  as  a  means  of  excluding  the 
papists  from  the  benefits  of  toleration.  Baxter,  as  one 
would  expect,  stoutly  maintained  the  negative,  contending 
that  Dr.  Owen's  thesis  was  neither  a  fundamental  nor  a 
truth,  and  that  if,  among  the  papists  or  any  others,  a  poor 
Christian  should  believe  by  the  teaching  of  another  with- 
out ever  knowing  that  there  is  a  Scripture,  he  should  be 
saved,  because  it  is  promised  that  whosoever  believed 
should  be  saved.*  The  weakness  of  Owen's  position  is 
apparent,  and  its  mischievousness  not  less  so ;  not  merely 
in  unduly  narrowing  the  limits  of  religious  toleration  to 
the  disturbance  of  the  peace  of  the  commonwealth,  but 
still  more  in  exposing  faith  in  the  utility  of  Scripture  to 
the  bitter  assaults  of  free  thinkers  like  Eousseau,  who  found 
it  an  easy  task  to  refute  such  a  doctrine  as  that  of  Owen 
by  the  method  of  reductio  ad  dbsurdum.  How  dififerent 
from  this  exaggerated  and  perilous  way  of  speaking  con- 
cerning the  Bible  indulged  in  by  the  theologian  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  the  sober,  moderate,  dignified  state- 
ment of  the  Apostle  Paul,  "  All  scripture  given  by  in- 
spiration is  profitable,"*  useful.  He  does  not  deem  it 
necessary  to  lay  down  a  negative  position  as  to  what 
can  be  done  without  Scripture.  He  is  content  to  teach 
positively  that  the  Scriptures  are  useful  for  the  ends  of 
religious  edification.  Whatever  may  befall  the  man  who 
has  not  the  felicity  to  enjoy  the  aid  of  this  valuable 
means  of  grace,  it  is  certain,  in  Paul's  judgment,  that  the 
man  who  has  the  Scriptures  in  his  hand,  and  makes  a 
wise  use  of  them,  is  in  a  fair  way  of  becoming  perfect, 
thoroughly  furnished  unto  all  good  works. 

The  utility  and  value  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  arise 
1  RdiqyMt  Baxterianat,  p.  199.  *  8  Tim.  Ui.  IC 


302  AP0L06ETI0& 

ultimately  from  this,  that  they  are  a  literature  of  revelation, 
that  is  to  say  a  record  and  interpretation  of  the  self- 
revelation  of  God  to  Israel  This  has  to  be  borne  in  mind 
in  comparing  these  writings  with  other  books  of  a  highly 
edifying  character.  Leaving  this  fact  out  of  sight,  one 
may  think  himself  justified  in  putting  certain  becks  on  a 
level  with  the  Bible,  or  even  in  some  respects  above  it. 
The  Bible,  it  may  be  said,  is  a  very  good  book,  profitable 
for  edification  without  doubt ;  but  then  there  are  other 
books  also  remarkable  for  this  quality,  such  as  the  Con- 
fessions of  St  Augustine,  and  the  golden  treatise  of  A 
Kempis  on  the  Imitation  of  Christ,  not  to  speak  of  the 
Dialogues  of  Plato  and  the  Meditations  of  Antoninus. 
"  Think  you,"  asks  a  French  writer  of  the  school  of 
Theodore  Parker,  "  I  search  not  my  edification  in  the  Bible, 
that  it  has  ceased  to  console  me,  to  lead  me  to  repentance^ 
to  turn  me  from  evil,  to  excite  me  to  good?  Have  I 
given  up  using  it  as  my  daily  bread,  and  has  it  disappeared 
from  my  house  ?  Assuredly  not.  All  I  say  is  that  nothing 
in  the  impression  I  receive  from  that  book  resembles 
autliority.  Between  the  Confessions  of  St.  Augustine, 
the  Meditations  of  Bossuet,  the  Imitation  of  Jesus  Christ, 
and  the  Bible,  I  see  a  difference  of  degree,  not  of  nature."  * 
The  answer  to  this  is  that  the  Bible  is  not  a  mere  book  of 
devotion,  and  still  less,  of  course,  a  mere  book  of  general 
literature,  the  literary  remains  of  the  Hebrew  people. 
Viewed  from  the  merely  devotional  or  literary  point  of 
view,  the  Bible  in  some  parts  may  be  inferior  to  other 
books  that  might  be  named.  But  in  this  respect  it  is 
unique,  that  it  is  a  literature  which  providentially  grew 
up  around  a  historical  revelation  of  God  in  Israel,  and 
which  performs  for  that  revelation  the  function  of  an 
atmosphere,  diffusing  the  sunlight,  so  that  the  knowledge 
of  God  is  spread  abroad  over  all  the  earth.  And  in  virtue 
of  this  function  it  may  in  an  intelligible  sense  be  called 
an  authoritative  book.  There  is  no  other  book  but  the 
*  P4caat,  Le  Christ  et  la  Conscience^  pp.  19,  20. 


THE   OLD   TESTAMENT   LITERATXTRB.  303 

Bible  which  serves  this  precise  end,  and  the  authority  it 
possesses  on  that  account  can  be  got  rid  of  only  by  denying 
the  reality  of  the  revelation  of  which  it  is  the  record. 

In  the  light  of  this  function  other  attributes  ascribed  by 
theologians  to  Scripture  are  most  easily  understood  and 
vindicated — perfection,  for  example,  or  infallibility.  In 
view  of  the  unique  nature  of  the  holy  writings  as  the 
literature  of  revelation,  it  is  possible  to  assign  to  these 
attributes  an  important  meaning  without  advancing  what 
might  be  regarded  as  extravagant  or  ill-founded  claims. 
In  this  connection  it  is  of  the  utmost  moment  to  distinguish 
between  what  individual  believers  hold  as  matter  of  per- 
sonal conviction,  and  what  as  believers  in  revelation  we 
are  bound  to  hold.  One  may  believe  that  the  Scriptures 
in  general,  and  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  in  particular,  are 
characterised  by  absolute  immunity  from  error  in  fact  or 
sentiment,  and  yet  as  an  apologist  be  entitled  to  ask,  Is 
this  characteristic  necessarily  involved  in  the  end  which 
these  writings  were  designed  to  subserve  ?  It  will  be 
obvious  that  the  maintenance  of  the  affirmative  on  this 
question  is  somewhat  perilous,  when  it  is  considered  in 
what  state  we  possess  the  Scriptures  now.  For  the  million 
the  only  means  of  knowing  the  sacred  books  is  through 
translations,  which,  however  faithfully  executed  on  the 
whole,  do  nevertheless  but  imperfectly  reflect  the  sense 
of  the  original.  Then  even  for  the  learned  the  Hebrew 
and  Greek  texts  do  not  exist  in  their  original  purity. 
Nay,  the  text  of  the  Hebrew  Bible,  with  which  we  are  at 
present  concerned,  never  existed  as  one  whole,  in  absolute 
purity.  The  errorless  autograph  for  which  some  so  zeal- 
ously contend  is  a  theological  figment  There  may  con- 
ceivably have  been  such  a  document  for  each  part  in 
succession,  but  there  never  was  an  errorless  autograph 
of  the  collection  as  a  whole.  The  Bible  was  produced 
piecemeal,  and  by  the  time  the  later  portions  were  pro- 
duced the  earlier  had  lost  their  supposed  immaculateness. 
And  that  we  may  see  how  necessary  it  is  to  be  crrcnmspecl 


304  APOLOGETICS. 

in  our  a  priori  demands  of  perfection  and  faultlessness,  it  is 
well  to  remember  in  what  form  the  words  of  the  Hebrew 
autographs  were  written.  They  were  written  with  con- 
sonants only,  the  vowels  being  left  to  be  supplied  by  the 
reader,  the  result  being  that  no  man  but  the  writer  could 
be  perfectly  sure  in  numerous  cases  what  he  intended  to 
say,  and  not  even  the  writer  himself,  in  every  case,  after 
the  lapse  of  time  long  enough  to  allow  partial  forgetfulness 
of  his  thought  to  occur.  The  Masoretic  Hebrew  text  is 
thus  only  an  approximately  accurate  translation  by  Jewish 
scholars  of  the  vowelless  original.*  This  defect  of  the 
Hebrew  language  as  written  is  an  awkward  characteristic  of 
a  book  bound  to  be  absolutely  accurate  in  all  its  statements 
under  pain  of  being  tossed  aside  as  useless  in  case  a  single 
error  great  or  small  be  detected  in  it.  No  wonder  some 
of  the  most  logically  consistent  dogmatists  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  met  the  dilemma  by  boldly  maintaining 
that  the  vowel  points  were  inspired.*  Unfortunately  this 
course  cannot  now  be  followed  even  by  the  boldest  dog- 
matist, and  the  only  way  of  escape  is  to  cherish  the  hope 
that  the  Hebrew  Bible  can  be  useful,  supremely  useful,  for 
the  end  for  which  it  was  given,  without  possessing  all  the 
imaginary  virtues  which  self-constituted  champions  of  its 
perfection  claim  for  it  In  accordance  with  that  view  the 
aim  of  the  apologist  must  be  to  ascertain  the  minimum 
requirements  necessary  to  accomplish  that  end. 

In  order  to  serve  their  end  as  the  literature  of  revela- 
tion the  Hebrew  Scriptures  would  need  to  be  a  reliable 
record  of  Israel's  history  in  its  main  outlines,  and  a  trust- 
worthy interpretation  of  the  meaning  of  that  history. 
The  hypothesis  of  faith  is  that  in  the  history  of  Israel  God 
revealed  Himself  as  the  Gbd  of  a  gracious  purpose,  and 
from  the  literature  of  revelation,  if  it  deserve  the  name, 

*  Vide  on  this  Professor  Robertson  Smith's  Old  Teetament  in  the,  Jewish 
Church,  Lect.  li.,  and  Professor  Kirkpatrick's  Divint  Library  of  the  Old 
Testament,  Lect.  iiL 

3  So  the  Formula  Conse$uu8  Helvetica.  Vide  Heppe,  Die  Dogmatii  der 
Evangdisch  B^ormirten  Sirche,  pp^  18,  19. 


THE   OLD  TESTAMENT   UTERATURB.  SOU 

it  ought  to  be  possible  to  learn  enough  of  that  history  to 
see  the  purpose  unfolding  itself,  and  to  get  guidance  in 
the  interpretation  of  the  essential  facta  from  men  to  whom 
has  been  fully  opened  up  the  secret  of  the  Lord.  It  is 
not  necessary  that  every  particular  historical  statement 
should  be  correct,  but  the  general  impression  made  by  the 
whole  story  of  Israel,  as  that  of  a  people  in  a  peculiar 
manner  related  to  God,  ought  to  be  true,  and  the  religious 
conception  of  Israel's  vocation,  and  of  God's  character  in 
connection  therewith,  formed  by  the  prophets  and  embodied 
in  their  writings,  ought  to  be  objectively  valid.  If  we 
cannot  rely  on  the  history  in  its  main  outlines,  as  the 
history  of  an  elect  people,  and  on  the  prophetic  reading  of 
the  history,  then  there  is  no  evidence  that  a  special  revela- 
tion took  place.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  can  rely  on 
both  these,  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  are  sufficient  for  this 
end ;  perfect  for  the  purpose  for  which  they  were  given, 
and  a  sure  guide  to  faith,  no  matter  how  many  defects 
there  may  be  in  the  historical  record,  whether  in  the  form 
of  lacuncB,  or  of  individual  facts  not  quite  accurately 
represented. 

At  this  point  the  question  may  naturally  be  raised,  How 
is  the  religious  value  of  the  Old  Testament  affected  by 
critical  views  as  to  the  late  origin  of  the  Pentateuch  and  of 
the  law  as  a  written  code  ?  The  question  resolves  into  two : 
First,  assuming  the  correctness  of  these  critical  views,  what 
value  have  the  relative  parts  of  the  Bible  for  the  unlearned 
reader  entirely  ignorant  of  criticism :  do  they  not  seriously 
mislead  him  ?  Second,  how  far  can  these  Scriptures  retain 
their  value  as  a  religious  guide  for  those  who  accept  the 
results  of  critical  inquiry  ? 

The  unlearned  reader  regards  the  Pentateuch  as  the 
work  of  Moses,  and  all  the  laws  it  contains  as  delivered 
by  him  to  Israel  in  the  name  of  Jehovah.  With  this  view 
he  accepts  all  the  statements  he  finds  in  the  five  books 
with  reference  to  Israel's  early  history,  and  the  incidents  of 
the  forty  years'  sojourn  in  the  wilderness  as  absolutely  and 

U 


306  APOLOOEnOH 

literally  correct  If  critical  theoriei  be  well  fonnded^  this 
implicit  confidence  is  to  a  certain  extent  misplaced. 
Certain  laws,  for  example,  are  put  into  the  mouth  of 
Moses,  which  were  in  reality  of  much  later  date,  if  not 
as  customs,  at  least  as  divine  commands.  The  plain  reader 
is  thus  occasionally  misled  as  to  matters  of  historical  fact; 
the  thing  did  not  always  so  happen  as  he  is  led  to  imagine. 
But  does  he  get  a  wrong  religious  impression  by  taking 
all  that  is  stated  concerning  the  origins  of  Israel  in  Genesis, 
and  concerning  the  Sinaitic  legislation  in  the  following 
books,  as  literally  and  exactly  true  ?  Certainly  not ;  on 
the  contrary,  he  simply  learns  with  added  emphasis  the 
lessons  which,  on  any  theory  that  accepts  revelation  as  a 
fact,  the  books  in  question  were  intended  to  convey :  that 
Israel  was  a  chosen  people,  and  that  God's  covenant  with 
Israel  was  formed  through  the  mediation  of  Moses.  The 
first  of  these  truths  is  vividly  set  forth  in  the  story  of  the 
patriarchs  in  Genesis.  The  critical  student  of  the  Bible 
may  have  misgivings  as  to  the  historical  exactness  of  many 
particulars  in  that  story,  but  if  he  be  a  believing  man  he 
will  accept  the  general  significance  of  the  narrative,  viz. 
that  from  the  very  first  God  was  preparing  a  people  that 
should  stand  in  peculiar  relations  to  Himself,  and  perform 
a  very  important  function  in  the  religious  history  of  the 
world.  The  unlearned  man  takes  from  the  story  the  same 
meaning,  only  with  greatly  enhanced  impressiveness  be- 
cause of  his  implicit  confidence  in  all  the  details.  So 
likewise  with  regard  to  the  law.  For  the  critic  the  law 
is  Mosaic,  only  in  the  sense  that  it  is  the  result  of  a 
development  out  of  historical  Mosaism.  The  Mosaic 
legislation,  for  him,  contained  the  Levitical  code  only  in 
the  sense  in  which  the  acorn  contains  the  oak.  The  one 
God  of  the  Decalogue  led  eventually  to  one  sanctuary,  and 
the  one  sanctuary  led  in  turn  to  a  definitely  regulated 
worship.  For  the  unlearned  man  the  one  sanctuary  and 
the  priestly  code  are  Mosaic  in  the  same  sense  as  the 
Decalogue  is.     In  his  way  of  viewing  the  matter,  the  tree 


THE   OLD   TESTAMENT   LITERATURE.  *-:07 

did  not  grow,  but  was  created  full  grown ;  just  as  for  the 
generations  of  men  who  lived  before  the  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion came  into  vogue,  the  diverse  species  of  living  creatures 
were  regarded  as  immediate  creations,  not  as  the  slow 
product  of  a  secular  development.  Historically  and  scien- 
tifically he  may  be  mistaken  as  to  the  genesis  of  the  law, 
as  our  forefathers  are  believed  to  have  been  mistaken  as  to 
the  genesis  of  species ;  but  his  very  mistake  only  tends 
to  strengthen  what  even  the  believing  critic  admits  to  be 
a  true  impression :  that  the  law  as  found  in  the  Pentateuch 
was  Mosaic  The  difference  between  him  and  the  critic 
is  this :  The  critic  says  the  law  grew  out  of  Mosaism,  the 
plain  man  says  the  law  was  given  by  Mosea 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  unlearned  reader  of  the 
Scriptures  loses  something  through  his  ignorance  of  criti- 
cism, assuming  always  that  its  conclusions  are  well  founded. 
He  does  not  understand  the  real  course  of  Israel's  religious 
history,  and  misses  all  the  edification  which  an  intelligent 
view  of  that  history  is  fitted  to  yield.  Then  through  lack 
of  such  insight  many  things  in  the  historical  records  remain 
unexplained  puzzles  for  him.  If,  e.g.^  the  law  of  the  one 
sanctuary  was  as  old  as  Moses,  how  came  it  to  pass  that, 
up  to  a  certain  date,  nobody,  not  even  prophets  and  pious 
kings,  seemed  to  know  of  it,  or  to  pay  any  heed  to  it  ?  And 
how  is  it  that  in  certain  books  of  the  Pentateuch  a  careful 
distinction  is  made  between  priests  and  Levites,  while  in 
Deuteronomy  they  seem  to  be  identified  ?  And  why  do 
the  Levites  always  appear  in  the  fifth  book  of  the  Penta- 
teuch poor  portionless  men,  while  in  the  middle  books  we 
find  careful  legislative  provision  for  their  needs  ? 

The  existence  of  such  unsolved  problems  for  the  un- 
learned reader  doubtless  tends  to  mar  his  edification.  But 
the  evil  is  not  irremediable.  Criticism  can  be  popularised 
The  process  indeed  involves  peril  There  is  a  risk  that 
old  reverence  may  be  lost  while  new  knowledge  is  being 
acquired.  But  that  risk,  to  which  faith  is  exposed  in  all 
times  of  transition,  most  be  run.     It  will  not  do  to  say  s 


308  ▲POLOGEnc& 

leave  the  plain  man  alone  to  enjoy  his  Bible  in  Ms  own 

fashion ;  surely  he  can  get  all  the  benefit  the  Bible  waa 
intended  to  convey  to  devout  souls  without  being  de- 
pendent on  scholars.  The  fact  is  not  so.  The  plain  man 
can  get  some  good  from  the  Bible,  enough  to  save  his  soul, 
without  the  aid  of  critics;  but  not  all  the  good  that  is 
possible.  He  is  much  indebted  to  biblical  scholarship  for 
even  the  benefit  he  does  derive  from  an  uncritically  read 
Bible.  Without  the  aid  of  scholars  he  could  have  had  no 
access  to  the  Bible.  First,  the  Massoretes  had  to  furnish 
the  Hebrew  texts  with  vowel-signs,  to  indicate  how  the 
words  were  to  be  read  and  eliminate  all  possible  ambi- 
guities. Then  men  learned  in  Hebrew  and  Greek  had  to 
render  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  from  the  original 
languages  into  the  common  tongues.  More  recently  ex- 
perts have  had  to  revise  translations,  to  make  them  more 
exact,  and  to  bring  the  Bible  in  the  vernacular  into  more 
perfect  correspondence  with  the  best  text  of  the  original 
All  this  lies  behind  us.  It  is  now  the  turn  of  the  critics 
to  do  their  best  for  the  people.  This  is  the  task  of  the 
future.^ 

But  suppose  the  work  done,  the  question  which  next 
arises  is,  How  far  will  a  critically  instructed  public  be  able 
to  retain  its  faith  in  the  Bible  as  a  God-given,  sure  religious 
guide  ?  Now  in  this  connection  it  is  a  very  reassuring 
consideration,  that  on  critical  views  of  the  late  origin  of 
the  Levitical  law  all  New  Testament  verdicts  concerning 
the  law's  function  and  value  remain  not  only  unreversed, 
but  greatly  strengthened.  This  point  need  only  be  referred 
to  here,  as  it  has  been  already  handled  in  a  previous 
chapter.*  But  there  is  another  matter  which  has  to  be 
looked  into.  It  may  be  thought  that  the  ascription  of 
laws  to  Moses,  which  in  the  actual   form  they  assume  in 

*  The  task  is  even  now  being  performed  by  such  books  as  those  of  Robert- 
son Smith,  Eirkpatrick,  Sanday,  Ryle,  Gladden,  referred  to  at  the  head  of 
this  chapter. 

«  Vide  pw  27ft. 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  LITERATUBB.  309 

the  Pentateuch  were  of  much  later  date,  is  an  act  of  bad 
faith,  a  pia  fraus,  which  makes  it  hard  to  believe  in  the 
inspiration  of  those  who  were  parties  to  it.  Now  without 
constituting  ourselves  special  pleaders  for  Ezra  and  his 
associates,  let  it  be  frankly  granted  that  their  notions,  the 
notions  of  their  age  and  people,  regarding  literary  morality 
were  not  the  same  as  ours.  If  the  critics  are  right,  Hebrew 
editors  could  do  without  hesitation  what  we  should  think 
hardly  compatible  with  literary  honesty :  mix  up  things 
old  and  new,  ancient  laws  with  recent  additions;  report 
sayings  of  the  wise,  with  editorial  comments  not  dis- 
tinguished as  such;  collect  utterances  of  different  sages 
and  prophets  under  one  name ;  weave  different  versions  of 
one  and  the  same  event  into  one  continuous  though  not 
always  harmonious  narrative,  without  giving  the  slightest 
hint  of  what  they  were  doing.  But  what  then  ?  This  may 
be  crude  morality,  but  it  is  not  immorality.  For  there  is 
a  broad  distinction  between  these  two  things.  Immorality 
means  breaking  a  recognised  moral  law ;  crude  morality 
means  conforming  to  a  low  moral  standard.  The  former 
produces  an  evil  conscience  which  may  well  be  regarded 
as  exclusive  of  all  true  inspiration;*  the  latter  is  compatible 
with  a  perfectly  good  conscience,  and  therefore  with  a  state 
of  heart  open  to  God's  inspiring  influence.  Deborah  was 
a  heroic  woman,  and  a  true  inspired  prophetess,  but  she 
could  write  the  words :  "  To  every  man  a  damsel  or  two,"  ■ 
without  feeling  that  she  was  saying  anything  indelicate  or 
immoral  It  was  not  immorality,  as  it  would  be  to  us,  but 
it  was  very  crude,  barbarous  morality.  We  must  beware 
of  laying  down  hard  and  fast  abstract  rules  as  to  the 
conditions  under  which  inspiration  is  possible.  "We  only 
make  difficulties  for  ourselves  by  so  doing,  and  play  into 
the  hands  of  unbeliet  Free  thinkers  of  the  eighteenth 
century  objected  to  the   Bible  as  a  professed  revelation, 

*  The  case  of  Balaam  raises  the  question  whether  even  a  good  oonsoienoe 
be  an  indispensAble  condition  of  inspiration. 
'  Judg.  T.  30. 


310  AFOLOQICnCS. 

because  they  held  that  if  God  was  to  make  a  reTelatioB 

He  would  use  as  His  instruments  more  exemplary  men  than 
the  outstanding  characters  of  the  Bible  are.  It  is  arguing 
in  the  same  spirit  to  say  that  God  could  not  inspire,  or 
employ  as  His  agents,  men  capable  of  what  we  now  might 
feel  tempted  to  call  a  pia  fravs.  It  is  a  sample  of  the 
mischievous  apriorism  which  it  is  so  difficult  to  get  rid  of 
in  connection  with  this  class  of  questions.  It  is,  it  may  be 
added,  an  instance  of  the  common  tendency  of  religious 
people  to  'patronise  God,  that  is  to  say,  to  be  more  solicitous 
for  His  honour  and  dignity  than  He  is  Himself.  How 
much  of  this  there  has  been  in  connection  with  the  sacred 
writings !  God  must  write  Hebrew  with  vowel  points, 
otherwise  His  meaning  will  be  ambiguous.  He  must  write 
good,  Attic  Greek,  free  from  Hebraisms  and  Hellenistic 
barbarisms,  otherwise  His  reputation  as  an  author  will  be 
compromised.  He  must  employ  paragons  of  moral  ex- 
cellence as  the  instruments  of  revelation,  lest  His  holiness 
be  stained  by  human  faults.  What  is  to  be  said  of  aU 
this,  and  more  of  the  like  sort,  but  that  it  is  folly  like 
that  of  Job's  friends,  who  constituted  themselves  patrons 
and  champions  of  divine  righteousness,  and  maintained 
that  no  really  good  man  ever  was  allowed  to  suffer 
as  Job  suffered.  The  proper  answer  to  all  such  a  priori 
theorising  is  an  appeal  to  fact.  The  righteous  may  suffer, 
for  I  suffer,  said  Job,  sturdily  refusing  to  deny  facts 
because  they  might  upset  pet  theories.  God  may  inspire 
men  who  commit  what  we  deem  literary  sins,  say  we, 
for  books  of  the  Bible  in  which  these  so-called  literary 
sins  are  committed  bear  all  the  marks  of  inspiration 
— the  divine  in  us  bearing  witness  to  the  divine  in 
them. 

The  utility  of  the  Scriptures  as  a  literature  of  revelation 
naturally  involves  that  great  importance  should  be  attached 
to  the  collection  into  one  volume  or  library  of  all  the 
writings  regarded  as  coming  legitimately  under  that  cate- 
gory.    In  theological  language,  the  function   of  Scripture 


THB  OLD  TESTAMENT  LITERATURB.      311 

demands  a  eanon  of  Scripture.*  Now  the  history  of  the 
formation  of  the  canon,  in  the  case  both  of  the  Old  and  the 
New  Testaments,  is  very  disappointing.  The  facts  are  by 
no  means  such  as  we  should  naturally  have  anticipated. 
If  one  firmly  believing  in  a  divine  revelation,  and  alive  to 
the  value  of  a  written  record  and  interpretation  to  insure 
that  such  a  revelation  should  not  be  made  in  vain,  were  to 
set  himself  to  sketch  an  d  priori  history  of  the  Bible,  the 
result  might  be  something  like  this :  "  As  each  new  scene 
in  the  drama  of  revelation  was  brought  on  the  stage  of 
history,  God  by  a  very  special  providence  saw  to  it  that  a 
competent  chronicler  and  interpreter  should  be  at  hand, 
and  should  give  a  clear,  correct,  and  full  account  of  all 
that  had  been  done  and  said,  and  that  when  the  writing 
was  finished  it  should  be  duly  certified  and  laid  up  for 
preservation  in  a  safe  placa  Thus,  for  example,  was  pro- 
vided for  the  information  of  all  after  ages  a  thoroughly 
reliable,  absolutely  accurate  record  of  the  history  of  God's 
dealings  with  the  chosen  race  from  the  time  of  Abraham's 
call  to  the  time  of  settlement  in  the  promised  land,  written 
by  men  whose  names  are  attached  to  the  sections  of  the 
narrative  of  which  they  were  the  authors.  In  the  same 
way  was  provided  for  the  use  of  the  Christian  Church  a 
full,  accurate,  self-consistent  account  of  the  life  of  Christ, 
written  by  eye-witnesses  and  certified  to  be  their  work  by 
evidence  not  to  be  gainsaid.  And  when  the  drama  of 
revelation  was  complete  then  all  the  separate  books  were 
gone  over,  and,  being  found  duly  attested,  were  put  together 
as  one  in  the  face  of  the  world  by  a  body  of  responsible 
men  who  were  unanimous  in  their  judgment  as  to  what 
ought  to  enter  into  the  sacred  collection."  How  different 
the  actual  state  of  the  case  from  this  fancy  picture !  Not 
a  few  of  the  books  which  make  up  the  Bible  are  anonymous, 
and  it  is  not  possible  to  ascertain  with  certainty  when  or 
by  whom  they  were  written.     In  the  case  of  a  book  like 

'  On  the  history  and  meaning  of  the  term,  vide  Beosa,   Hiatoin  Al 
Canon  dta  Saintet-^critures  dans  L'J^glise  ChritiemM,  chap.  xlL 


312  APOLOGETIC& 

i7b5  that  does  not  greatly  matter,  as  its  religious  value  is  to  • 
large  extent  independent  of  time  and  authorship.  But  it  is 
a  more  serious  thing  to  be  left  in  doubt  as  to  the  authorship 
and  date  of  the  Pentateuch.  The  five  Books  of  Moses,  as 
they  are  commonly  c«dled,  would  have  a  much  higher 
historical  value  if  it  were  certain  that  Moses  was  their 
author,  than  if  there  were  reason  to  believe  that  not  even  a 
considerable  part  of  the  literary  material  contained  in  the 
books,  not  to  speak  of  the  documents  as  they  now  exist, 
proceeded  from  the  hand  of  the  hero  of  the  Exodus.  The 
view  taken  by  modem  critics  on  this  grave  question  is 
well  known.  It  is  not  necessary  here  to  discuss  the  question, 
but  simply  to  advert  to  the  fact  that  there  is  a  question, 
as  one  of  the  disappointing  phenomena  connected  with  the 
sacred  writings  which  run  quite  contrary  to  antecedent 
expectation.  The  dubiety  about  the  authorship  of  the 
Gospels,  especially  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  is  another  fact  of 
the  same  kind.  And  there  are  many  more.  If  it  were  a 
mere  matter  of  doubts  started  by  modern  critics  regarding 
the  authorship  of  particular  books  in  either  Testament,  the 
devout  student  might  contrive  to  bear  it  with  equanimity, 
comforting  himself  with  the  reflection  that  the  modem 
mind  is  impatient  of  the  fetters  of  faith,  and  has  indulged 
in  sceptical  speculations  concerning  the  Bible  to  a  licentious 
extent  in  a  passionate  desire  to  regain  freedom.  But  even 
in  the  ancient  believing  ages  there  were  doubts :  doubts  as 
to  the  books  which  ought  to  be  included  in  the  sacred  col- 
lection, doubts,  «,^.,  in  connection  with  the  New  Testament  in 
reference  to  no  less  than  seven  of  its  books :  the  Book  oi 
Revelation,  and  the  Epistles  of  James,  Jude,  2nd  Peter 
2nd  and  3rd  John,  and  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  And 
there  is  reason  to  believe  that  similar  doubts  prevailed  for 
a  time  in  reference  to  certain  Old  Testament  books,  and 
that  the  Jewish  Church,  not  less  than  the  Christian,  had 
its  list  of  aTUUegomena}     It  is  true  indeed  that  in  both 

^  Those  ohiefly  belonged  to  the  third  division  of  the  Hebrew  Bible,  the 
Kethvbim,      Vid*  on  this  Ryle,  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament,  chap,  viii. 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  LITERATURE.  313 

cases  these  doubts  were  at  length  overcome.  But  how 
much  more  comfortable  it  would  have  been  to  know  that 
there  never  had  been  any  doubts,  or  room  for  them  ;  as  one 
cannot  but  feel  that  where  there  has  been  doubt  once  there 
may  be  doubt  again,  and  that  the  hesitations  of  the  Jewish 
and  Christian  Churches  really  signify  that  on  the  subject  of 
the  canon  one  can  never  get  beyond  probabilities. 

The  foregoing  facts  suggest  certain  reflections.  The  first 
is  that  it  was  manifestly  not  God's  will  to  provide  for 
the  formation  of  a  canon  about  which  there  could  be  no 
dispute,  by  a  miraculous  providence.  It  is  conceivable  that 
He  might  have  done  so,  just  as  it  is  conceivable  that  He 
might  have  preserved  the  text  of  Scripture  absolutely 
incorrupt  But  neither  in  the  one  case  nor  in  the  other, 
nor  indeed  in  anything  relating  to  the  Bible,  has  it  pleased 
God  to  proceed  in  the  way  which  we,  looking  at  the  matter 
theoretically,  might  think  the  best.  But  because  there 
was  no  miraculous  providence  connected  with  the  pro- 
duction of  the  Bible,  it  does  not  follow  that  God  exercised 
over  it  no  care  whatever.  We  ought  surely  to  apply  to  the 
Bible  Origen's  maxim  that  no  good  and  useful  thing  comes 
to  men  without  the  providence  of  God.  A  book  so  supremely 
good  as  the  Bible  is  not  here  sine  numine.  In  this  view 
men  of  all  schools — Grotius,^  Myers,*  Gaussen  ' — concur. 

A  second  reflection  suggested  by  the  facts  above  stated 
is,  that  a  certain  amount  of  dubiety  concerning  the  history 
of  the  literature  of  revelation  must  be  compatible  with  the 
realisation  of  the  end  for  which,  ex  hypothesi,  the  Scriptures 
exist — to  be  a  guide  to  religious  faith.  It  seems  due  to  the 
facts  that  doubts  have  existed  even  among  believing  men, 
regarding  the  authenticity  of  certain  books  of  Scripture, 
and  the  canonicity  of  others,  that  we  should  abstain  from 
exaggerated  views  as  to  the  indispensableness  of  certainty 
on  such  questions.     Such  views  would  not  be  wise  eithe/ 

*  De  Veritatt  Bdiffionis  Christiance,  lib.  iii.  chap.  iz. 
■  Catholic  Thought*  on  tht,  Bible  and  Theology,  p.  61. 
'  Tk*  Canon  of  the  Holy  Seripturat,  p.  4S1. 


314  APOLOOETICa 

iu  respect  of  onr  own  comfort  as  individnal  beI!eTert» « 

in  respect  of  the  public  interest  of  the  faith.  It  is  not  a 
wise  policy  to  ofifer  to  men  the  alternatives  :  all  or  nothing, 
either  the  whole  Bible  as  it  stands  an  unquestionable 
revelation  from  God,  or  give  up  the  idea  of  a  revelation 
altogether;  either  an  absolutely  certain  canon,  or  give  up 
the  notion  of  a  divine  purpose  in  connection  with  a  col- 
lection of  writings  recording  and  illustrating  revelation. 
Rather  let  us  admit,  what  is  notoriously  the  fact,  that  it 
is  possible  for  a  man  to  be  a  sincere  and  sound  believer 
and  exemplary  Christian,  and  yet  have  doubts,  even  ill- 
grounded  and  unreasonable  doubts,  respecting  particular 
books  of  Scripture ;  in  other  words,  let  us  admit  that  the  end 
of  the  Scriptures  as  a  whole,  the  edification  of  men  in  faith 
and  holiness,  may  be  realised  while  uncertainty  prevails  in 
reference  to  particular  books  of  Scripture.  The  possibility 
of  this  is  well  illustrated  by  the  case  of  Luther,  who  was  a 
most  orthodox  believer,  and  a  noble  Christian  man,  well 
furnished  for  every  good  work,  and  specially  for  rendering 
the  Hebrew  and  Greek  Scriptures  into  good  idiomatic 
German,  yet  gravely  doubted,  nay  strenuously  denied,  the 
canonicity  of  the  Epistle  of  James,  because  it  seemed  to 
contradict  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith,  his  very 
orthodoxy  being  thus  the  source  of  his  doubt 

Orthodoxy  and  piety  being  indubitably,  as  matter  of  fa6t, 
compatible  with  doubts  concerning  the  canonicity  of  certain 
parts  of  Scripture,  the  question  naturally  suggests  itself, 
How  may  this  compatibility  be  made  evident  as  a  matter 
of  theory  ?  "We  may  employ  for  this  purpose  the  idea  of 
an  organism.  The  Bible  may  be  conceived  as  an  organic 
body  of  writings,  in  which  every  particular  book  has  its 
proper  place  and  function.  But  in  every  living  organism 
some  organs  are  vital  and  some  are  not  There  are  parts 
of  the  body  which  to  lose  is  to  die ;  there  are  others  which 
we  may  lose  without  dying,  or  even  materially  suffering  in 
health.  "  Some  members  of  the  body,"  writes  Dr.  Hodge, 
*  are  more  important  than  others,  and  some  books  of  \Am 


THB  OLD  TESTAMENT  LITEEATURB.      815 

Bible  could  be  better  spared  than  others.  There  may  be 
as  great  a  difference  between  John's  Gospel  and  the  book  of 
Chronicles  as  between  a  man's  brain  and  the  hair  of  his 
head ;  nevertheless  the  life  of  the  body  is  as  truly  in  the 
hair  as  in  the  brain,"*  Dr.  Hodge's  point  is  that  even 
unimportant  books  may  be  inspired.  But  the  observation 
quoted  serves  our  purpose  equally  well,  which  is  to  show 
that  there  may  be  doubts  about  certain  books  of  the  Bible 
without  vital  consequence  to  faith  ensuing.  The  hair  of 
the  head  is  a  part  of  the  body,  yet  a  man  can  live  com- 
fortably enough  without  it  In  like  manner  it  may  happen 
to  a  man  to  be  in  doubt  about  this  or  the  other  book  of 
Scripture,  yet  he  may  derive  from  the  sacred  writings  the 
benefit  they  were  designed  to  confer.  It  is  not  insinuated 
that  all  the  books  of  the  Bible  whose  canonicity  has  been 
doubted  are  as  unimportant  to  the  organism  of  Scripture 
as  the  hair  of  the  head  is  to  the  body.  Who  would  say 
this  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  concerning  which  the 
early  Church  for  a  season  stood  in  doubt  ?  The  purpose  is 
merely  to  throw  out  a  general  reflection  that  may  be  help- 
ful in  perplexity,  not  to  pronounce  invidious  judgments  on 
individual  books. 

The  history  of  the  formation  of  the  Hebrew  canon  is 
involved  in  deep  obscurity.  According  to  modern  critics 
it  was  the  work  of  the  exile  and  post-exile  period.  The 
foundation  was  laid  by  the  compilation  of  the  Pentateuch 
by  or  under  the  direction  of  Ezra,  whereon  was  gradually 
built  up  the  superstructure  of  the  Prophets  and  the  Psalms, 
To  the  Psalter  were  finally  added  other  books,  mostly  of 
late  origin,  the  whole  forming  a  group  called  in  the  Hebrew 
Bible  Kethubim,  and  in  the  Septuagint  Hayiographa}     This 

*  Syatematie  Theology,  i.  164. 

'  Scholars  distinguish  three  canons  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures :  1.  The 
Law,  completed  before  432  B.C.  ;  2.  The  Law  with  the  PropA€/» added,  com- 
pleted about  200  B.C.  ;  3.  The  fall  canon  of  the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  tht 
Writings,  completed  about  100  A.D.,  but  virtually  settled  100  B.O.  Vid* 
Ryle,  Tht  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament,  for  a  full  account  of  all  that  relates 
to  these  three  canons. 


sit  APOLOGETIOS. 

miscellaneous  group  is,  as  has  been  remarked,  "  the  region 
of  the  Old  Testament  antilegomena"  various  books,  such  aa 
Chronicles,  Esther,  Canticles,  and  Ecclesiastes,  having, 
apparently,  been  the  subject  of  dispute  in  the  Jewish 
schools.  On  this  view  of  the  post-exilic  origin  of  the 
Hebrew  Bible  one  cannot  but  have  an  uncomfortable 
feeling  that  the  scribes  had  more  to  do  with  the  collecting 
of  the  sacred  writings  than  a  Christian  can  regard  as  at  all 
desirable.  For  to  the  scribe  the  law  was  supreme,  and 
everything  else,  prophecy  and  sacred  song,  of  quite  sub- 
ordinate importance.  But  the  very  fact  that  the  Prophets 
and  the  Psalms  found  a  place  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures 
beside  the  Law  shows  that  other  influences  were  at 
work.  For  these  portions  of  the  Bible  we  are  indebted, 
probably,  far  more  to  the  piety  of  the  Jewish  people,  than 
to  the  care  of  their  legal  instructors.  They  survive  because 
the  godly  in  Israel  valued  them  as  helpful  to  their  spiritual 
life.  All  that  the  scribes  had  to  do,  when  late  in  the  day 
they  turned  their  attention  to  the  subject  of  the  canon, 
was  to  recognise  the  verdict  already  pronounced  by  the 
voice  of  God's  people.* 

The  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  may  appear  to  some 
minds  a  very  insecure  basis  on  which  to  build  the  doctrine 
of  the  canon.  It  is  common  in  matters  of  religion  to 
demand  more  certainty  than  it  is  possible  to  obtaia  To 
people  of  this  temper  the  old  view  as  to  the  formation  of 
the  Hebrew  canon  commends  itself.  It  was  founded  on 
Jewish  traditions  of  comparatively  late  origin.  These 
traditions  accredited  Ezra,  Nehemiah,  and  the  Great  Syna- 
gogue, as  it  was  called,  with  a  very  important  rdle  in  con- 
nection with  the  collection  of  the  sacred  books.  The  legend 
assumed  two  forms — one  very  extravagant,  the  other  more 
rational.  According  to  the  tale  told  in  the  fourth  book  of 
Ezra,  an  apocryphal  writing  belonging  to  the  close  of  the 
first  century  B.O.,  the  holy  books  having  been  destroyed  at 

*  Vide  on  this  Professor  Robortson  Smith's  Old  Testament  in  the  Jettiak 
Clmreh,  2nd  ed.  p.  168. 


THB  OLD  TESTAMENT   UTERATUBB.  31 7 

the  time  of  the  captivity,  Eara  restored  them  miraculously 
through  divine  inspiratioo.  The  soberer  form  of  the 
tradition  found  in  the  Talmud  ascribes  to  Ezra,  Nehemiah, 
and  the  men  of  the  Great  Synagogue  only  the  work  of 
completing  the  canon,  the  earlier  writings  being  ascribed  to 
other  authors :  the  Pentateuch  to  Moses,  the  Psalms  to 
David,  and  so  on.  The  men  of  the  Great  Synagogue 
reduced  to  writing  only  the  books  contained  in  the 
mnemonic  word  Kandag ;  Ezekiel,  the  twelve  minor  pro- 
phets, Daniel,  and  Esther.*  This  tradition  was  afterwards 
modified  so  as  to  assign  to  Ezra  a  more  important  function. 
According  to  the  later  version,  Ezra  and  the  Great  Synagogue 
collected  into  one  volume  the  previously  dispersed  books, 
distributing  them  under  the  three  heads  of  the  Law,  the 
Prophets,  and  the  Kethubim. 

This  tradition  has  been  very  variously  regarded. 
Formerly  it  was  received  implicitly  as  true,  and  the  opinion 
held  that  the  canon  of  the  Old  Testament  was  simul  et  semel 
settled  through  divine  inspiration  by  Ezra  and  the  Great 
Synagogue.  In  more  recent  times  it  has  been  treated  with 
little  respect  Some  scholars  regard  the  Great  Synagogue 
as  a  pure  myth,  and  its  work  on  the  canon  as  imaginary. 
Others,  such  as  Ewald,  hold  that  the  "  Great  Synagogue," 
though  surrounded  with  legendary  elements,  was  not 
altogether  mythical.  We  must  be  content  to  let  it  remain 
a  dim  shadowy  object  in  the  night  of  legalism. 

Of  much  greater  value  than  Talmudic  traditions  of  late 
origin,  regarding  the  collecting  of  the  sacred  writings,  were  a 
single  positive  statement  in  a  book  of  pre-Christian  date, 
indicating  that  at  the  time  when  it  was  written  a  collection 
actually  existed.  Such  a  statement  occurs  in  Hcclesiastiens,  or 
the  Wisdom  of  Jesus  the  Son  of  Sirach,  the  probable  date  of 
which  is  about  130  B.a  In  the  prologue  of  that  work  there  is 
explicit  reference  to  a  collection  consisting  of  three  divisions : 
the  Lata,  the  Prophets,  and  the  other  national  books.  The 
reference  occurs  in  such  a  connection  as  to  show  that 
^  VieU  Oehler  on  the  Canon  in  Henog. 


318  APOLOGETICS. 

the  collection  had  been  in  existence  long  enough  to  be  a 
subject  of  study  to  the  writer's  grandfather,  and  to  give  ri«>e 
to  a  demand  for  translation  into  the  Greek  tongue.  By 
150  B.C.,  or  thereby,  the  Hebrew  Bible,  if  not  complete  as 
we  have  it,  contained  at  least  books  in  all  the  three  cate- 
gories contained  in  the  Old  Testament  canon.  If  any 
books  were  wanting  at  that  time,  they  would  belong  to  the 
last  of  the  categories :  "  the  other  books,"  "  the  writings." 
If  the  critical  view  as  to  its  late  origin  be  correct,  Daniel 
might  be  among  the  missing  books.  Daniel  itself  bears  clear 
witness  to  the  existence  of  a  collection  of  the  prophets,  in  the 
words :  "  I  Daniel  understood  by  the  books,"  ^  the  books  being 
those  in  which  Jeremiah's  prophecies  were  included. 

As  the  Son  of  Sirach  is  the  first  known  witness  to  the 
existence  of  a  Hebrew  canon,  complete  at  least  in  its 
divisions,  so  another  well-known  Jewish  writer,  Josephus, 
is  an  important  witness  to  the  contents  of  the  canon  at  the 
date  when  he  wrote,  about  the  close  of  the  first  Christian 
century.  He  refers  to  the  subject  in  his  work  against 
Apion,  in  connection  with  an  attempt  to  show  the  reliable- 
ness of  Hebrew  history  as  compared  with  that  of  the 
Greeks.     It  may  be  well  to  quote  what  he  says  at  length : 

"  Therefore  with  us  there  is  not  an  innumerable  multitude 
of  books  contradicting  each  other,  but  only  twenty-two, 
embracing  the  history  of  the  whole  past  time,  and  deservedly 
regarded  as  divine.  Of  these,  five  are  by  Moses,  which 
contain  the  law  and  the  series  of  events  from  the  creation  of 
man  to  bis  death.  And  this  space  of  time  covers  almost 
three  thousand  years.  But  from  the  death  of  Moses  to  the 
reign  of  Artaxerxes,  who  after  Xerxes  ruled  over  the 
Persians,  the  prophete  who  succeeded  recorded  the  events  of 
their  time  in  thirteen  books.  The  four  remaining  bookf 
contain  hymns  in  praise  of  God  and  precepts  most  useful  for 
the  life  of  man.  But  from  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes  to  our 
time,  the  events  which  have  occurred  have  been  preserved 
in  writing,  but  the  records  have  not  been  deemed  worthy  of  the 
lame  credit,  because  there  was  no  exact  succession  of  propheta 

*  DuL  is.  a. 


THB  OLD  TESTAMENT  LTTERATURB.  319 

But  what  faith  we  place  in  our  Scriptures  is  seen  from  oui 
conduct.  No  one  has  dared  to  add  to  them,  or  to  take  away 
from  them,  or  to  alter  them.  It  is  implanted  in  the  mind  of 
all  Jews  from  their  birth  to  regard  them  as  the  commands  of 
Glod,  and  to  abide  in  them,and  if  need  be  gladly  die  for  them."  ^ 

The  question  has  been  much  discussed  how  the  contents 
of  the  Hebrew  canon  as  it  now  stands  can  be  grouped  so 
as  to  bring  out  the  number  twenty-two,  the  interest  ci  the 
problem  lying  in  the  wish  to  ascertain  whether  all  the  books 
in  our  Hebrew  Bible  were  included  in  Josephus'  list.  The 
only  book  about  which  there  has  been  any  doubt  is  Esther. 
On  the  whole,  it  may  be  accepted  as  certain  that  the  list  of 
Josephus  coincided  with  that  of  the  canon  of  the  Old 
Testament.*  Another  point  of  interest  in  the  foregoing 
passage  is  the  distinction  drawn  between  the  sacred  writings 
and  other  Jewish  books,  and  the  ground  of  it:  because 
there  was  no  exact  succession  of  prophets.  By  the  time  of 
Josephus  the  Jews  had  come  to  have  a  strong  sense  of  the 
difiFerence  between  canonical  and  non-canonical  writings, 
and  likewise  a  cut  and  dried  theory  as  to  the  reason  of 
the  difference.  A  canonical  book  was  a  book  written  b}- 
a  recognised  prophet.  Other  books,  however  good,  were 
refused  a  place  in  the  canon,  because  they  were  not  written 
under  prophetic  inspiration. 

This  theory  of  Josephus  raises  an  important  question : 
What  is  the  test  of  canonicity  ?  It  has  been  answered 
variously.  One  view  is  that  that  is  canonical  which  the 
Church  has  declared  to  be  such — which  simply  raises  a 
previous  question,  What  guided  the  Church  in  her  judgment  ? 
Another  view  is :  that  is  canonical,  in  the  case  of  the  Old 
Testament,  which  had  a  prophet  for  its  author,  and  in  the 
case  of  the  new,  an  apostle ;  but  this  assumes  certain 
knowledge  of  the  authors  of  the  books  and  of  their  stand- 
ing, which  in  many  cases  is  not  forthcoming.  Calvin, 
perceiving  the    unsatisfactoriness   of    these  solutions,  pro- 

'  Ckmtra  Apionem,  L  8. 

*  Sooh  is  the  Tiew  of  Byle.     Vide  Tht  Canon,  •<«.,  chKp.  tIL 


3ZU  APOLOGETICS. 

posed  this  test :  the  Spirit  of  God  in  the  Scriptnre  witness- 
ing to  our  spirit,  and  giving  us  a  sure  sense  of  its  inspiration 
and  divinity,  and  so  making  us  independent  both  of  the 
authority  of  the  Church,  and  of  all  external  questions  as  to 
authorship.  A  very  good  test  applied  to  the  Scriptures  as 
a  whole,  but  one  which  fails  us  just  when  we  most  need 
help,  viz.  in  reference  to  certain  books  whose  canonicity 
has  been  disputed  or  seems  intrinsically  disputable.  The 
witness  of  the  Spirit  may  help  us  through  our  difficulties 
about  the  Gospel  of  John  and  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
but  what  of  Esther,  Canticles,  and  Ecclesiastes  I  One 
more  suggestion  is  possible.  Find  out  the  main  drift  of 
Holy  Writ,  and  then  in  reference  to  any  particular  book 
that  may  be  called  in  question  ask,  is  its  teaching  in 
harmony  therewith?  In  other  words,  a  useful  test  oi 
canonicity,  if  not  the  one  test,  is  organic  function.  Does 
the  particular  book  serve  any  purpose  in  the  literature  of 
revelation,  is  it  in  harmony  with  its  design  and  outstanding 
doctrine  ?  This  was  virtually  Luther's  method.  In  his 
hands  it  yielded  some  unsatisfactory  conclusions,  because 
he  had  too  narrow  a  conception  of  the  scope  of  the  Bible, 
which  he  took  to  be  the  inculcation  of  the  doctrine  of 
justification  by  faith.  That  idea  strictly  applied  would 
reduce  the  Bible  to  very  small  dimensions.  If,  however, 
our  conception  of  the  raison  cCStre  of  Scripture  be  sufficiently 
comprehensive  it  will  help  us  through  most  canonical  pro- 
blems. We  shall  have  no  difficulty  in  seeing  that  the  Fourth 
Gospel  is  an  integral  member  in  the  organism  of  the  New 
Testament,  even  though  in  doubt  as  to  its  authorship,  and  as 
little  difficulty  in  deciding  for  the  canonicity  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  though  perfectly  certain  that  it  was  not 
written  by  Paul  or  any  other  apostle.  The  problems  that 
remain  unsolved,  and  leave  us  in  permanent  doubt,  will  be 
found  to  be  connected  with  books  of  minor  importance.* 

^  The  book  of  Job  by  th*  test  of  canonical  fdnction  baa  a  right  to  tti 
^ace,  becanae  it  deals  with  the  inevitable  problem  of  the  relation  of  Qod's 
lighteonsnen  as  Moral  OoTemor  to  indiyidnal  experienea.     It  does  not 


DSFECnS   OF  OLD   TESTAMENT   RELIGION.        321 


CHAPTEK  X. 

TBI  DiriOTB  Of  TBI  OLD  TESTAMENT  RXUQIOH  AHD  ITl 
XJTBBATUSK. 

LiTEEiTtrRE.  —  Mozley,  Riding  Ideas  in  Ancient  Ages; 
Ewald,  Die  Lehre  der  Bihd  von  Oott  (Band  I.,  English  trans- 
lation by  T.  &  T.  Clark,  Bevelation :  its  Nature  and  Becord)  ; 
Schultz,  Alttestamentliche  Theologie  (English  translation,  T.  & 
T.  Clark,  1892) ;  Bruce,  T?u  Chief  End  of  Bevelation,  chap,  iii; 
Driver,  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Old  Testament, 

The  remarks  on  the  test  of  canonicity  with  which  the  last 
chapter  closes  may  be  held  to  imply  that  the  canon  is  an 
open  question.  So  in  the  abstract  it  is.  It  never  can  be 
anything  else  on  the  principles  of  Protestantism,  which 
forbid  us  to  accept  the  decisions  of  Church  Councils, 
whether  ancient  or  modern,  as  final  But,  practically, 
the  question  of  the  canon  is  closed.  Few  have  any 
disposition  to  go  back  on  questions  relating  to  the  right  of 
certain  books  to  a  place  in  the  sacred  collection.  There  is 
a  general  willingness  to  acquiesce  in  the  judgments  of  the 
ancient  Jewish  and  Christian  Churches,  even  on  the  part 
of  those  who  are  most  fully  alive  to  the  fact  that  there  waa 
a  certain  amount  of  haphazard  in  these  judgments,  and 
that  they  proceeded  on  principles  which  will  not  always 
«tand  close  examination.  As  to  the  methods  on  which 
Old  Testament  canonical  problems  were  disposed  of  we  are 
very  much  in  the  dark.  When,  by  whom,  and  why  this 
or  that  particular  book  was  admitted  to  the  collection,  and 

indeed  aolre  the  problem,  but  it  negatiyea  enperficial  solutions,  and  keept 
the  question  open.  The  Song  qf  Solomon,  literally  interpreted  at  a  tttory  qf 
lru«  lovt  proqf  againtt  ik*  blandishmenta  of  the  royal  harem,  is  also  right- 
fully in  the  canon  as  a  buttress  to  the  true  religion  ;  for  whatever  made  for 
purity  in  the  relations  of  the  sexes  made  for  the  worship  of  Jehovah,  Baal- 
worship  and  impurity  being  closely  associated.  Ruth  \a  a  witness  for  ths 
nniyersality  of  Grod's  gracious  purpose,  and  an  antidote  to  the  tendency  of  the 
eleet  people  to  hate  foreigners.  The  same  may  be  said  of  Jcmak,  whether 
taken  aa  a  hittory  or  as  a  parable. 

X 


922  APOLOOBTIOa. 

another  was  excluded,  we  know  not  Bnt  we  do  know 
something  of  the  grounds  on  which  the  judgments  of  the 
Christian  Ohnrch  respecting  New  Testament  books  rested, 
and  we  know  that  in  some  instances  they  were  very 
precarious.  The  most  notable  instance  of  a  true  judgment 
being  arrived  at  on  false  or  uncertain  grounds  is  presented 
in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  The  Western  Church  long 
doubted  as  to  the  right  of  that  Epistle  to  a  place  in 
the  canon,  and  the  doubt  was  connected  with  the  question 
of  authorship.  In  the  East,  where  Paul  was  believed  to  be 
directly  or  indirectly  the  author,  it  was  accepted  without 
hesitation  as  canonical ;  the  Westerns,  on  the  other  hand, 
hesitated  as  to  admitting  its  claims  just  because  the  Pauline 
authorship  was  not  believed  in.  When  at  length  a  general 
vote  was  given  in  favour  of  the  Epistle,  it  was  on  the 
understanding  that  it  was  one  of  Paul's.  The  principle  of 
judgment  in  such  matters  in  those  days  was  that  canonicity 
and  apostolic  authorship  stand  and  fall  together.  That  it 
was  a  false  principle  is  now  generally  admitted.  Few 
believe  that  Paul  wrote  the  Epistle,  yet  as  few  doubt  that, 
tested  by  the  principle  of  canonical  function,  it  has  as  good 
a  right  to  a  place  in  the  New  Testament  ai  any  book  in 
the  collection. 

What  happened  in  the  case  of  the  New  Testament 
canon  may  also  have  happened  in  connection  with  the  Old 
for  anything  we  know.  We  have  no  right  to  assume  that 
the  Hebrew  canon  was  settled  under  more  special  divine 
guidance  than  that  vouchsafed  to  the  fathers  of  the 
Christian  Church  in  the  performance  of  a  similar  tasld 
The  presumption  is  all  the  other  way.  The  adjustment  of 
the  Hebrew  canon  took  place  in  the  night  of  legalism ; 
when  the  canon  of  the  New  Testament  was  fixed  the 
Church  was  largely  filled  by  the  spirit  of  Christ.  The 
possibility  of  wrong  decisions,  as,  e.g.,  in  the  case  of  the  book 
of  Esther,  must  therefore  be  admitted. 

Tet,  in  view  of  all  this,  every  one  is  conscious  of  a 
strong  relnotanot  to  reopan  th«^  question,  and  ai.  a  decided 


DEFECTS   OF   OLD   TESTAMENT   RELIGION.         323 

incliniition  to  accept  the  verdict  of  the  Jewish  Church  as 
final  And  acting  on  these  feelings  cannot  involve  any 
risk  to  religious  interests,  provided  we  understand  our 
privilege  and  duty  as  Christians  to  read  the  Old  Testament 
with  a  discriminating  eye.  This  may  seem  a  startling 
statement,  but  it  is  one  which  admits  of  vindication  not 
only  with  reference  to  books  of  minor  value  and  compara- 
tively doubtful  canonicity,  such  as  Chronicles  and  Esther, 
but  with  reference  to  the  whole  Old  Testament  literature. 
For  it  is  axiomatic  that  that  literature,  as  the  literature  of 
the  earlier  stages  of  revelation,  must  share  the  defects  of 
the  revelation  which  it  records  and  interprets.  And  if  the 
revelation  of  the  final  stage  has  done  its  proper  work  in  us, 
it  has  enabled  us  to  see  the  defects  of  the  revelation  of  the 
earlier  stages,  and  of  the  relative  literature.  The  word 
which  God  in  the  end  of  the  days  spoke  by  One  having  the 
standing  of  a  Son,  must  enable  us,  if  we  give  sufficient  heed 
to  it,  to  read  with  discrimination  the  multiform  and 
fragmentary  oracles  spoken  to  the  Jewish  fathers  by  the 
prophets,  and  to  see  clearly  how  true  of  them  was  the 
confession  Paul  made  for  himself,  "  We  prophesy  in  part." 
We  not  only  may,  as  men  taught  of  Christ,  so  read  the  Old 
Testament,  but  we  must.  We  cannot  help  ourselves,  if  we 
are  to  be  loyal  to  the  best  we  know.  Nay,  we  cannot 
help  ourselves,  if  we  are  really  to  use  the  Bible  as  a  whole 
wisely,  as  our  "  rule  of  faith  and  practice."  For  the  Bible 
is  a  rule  of  a  very  peculiar  kind.  It  is  a  rule  that  is 
constantly  improving  on  itself,  and  men  who  use  it  are 
expected  to  take  note  of  the  fact,  and  to  allow  the  later 
editions  of  the  rule  to  have  their  own  effect  in  antiquating 
the  earlier.  Thus  the  prophets  in  succession  present  under 
various  aspects  the  good  time  coming.  Their  presentations 
cannot  be  pieced  together  so  as  to  form  one  harmonious 
picture.  They  are  rather  like  the  successive  stages  of  an 
organism,  each  of  which  in  turn  supersedes  the  one  going 
beforeu^  Thus  again  Levitical  religion  for  the  Old  Testa< 
*  Vid*  <m  ihia,  Biehm,  Meaeianic  Prophtep,  pp.  1S6,  via. 


324  APOLOGETICS. 

ment  saint  was  a  source  of  delight;  the  author  of  the 
books  of  Chronicles  writes  as  if  the  world  existed  for  the 
sake  of  the  tribe  of  Levi,  and  the  performance  of  its  sacred 
functions  in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem.  But  the  writer  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  having  listened  to  the  voice  of 
the  Son,  pronounces  the  whole  Levitical  system  weak  and 
unprofitable.*  It  was  so,  in  his  judgment,  inherently  and 
all  along,  even  when  the  books  of  Chronicles  were  written. 
Can  we,  children  of  the  new  era  of  the  better  hope,  read 
those  books  without  feeling  that  more  is  made  of  the  then 
prevailing  system  than  it  was  all  worth,  and  that  the  Philo- 
Levitical  spirit  of  the  writer  is  a  religious  defect,  if  not  a 
moral  fault  ? 

The  Christian  revelation,  with  its  relative  literature, 
enables,  justifies,  compels  us  to  criticise  the  earlier  revela- 
tion and  its  relative  literature — such  is  the  great  principle 
under  law  to  which  we  must  use  the  Old  Testament  as 
part  of  the  rule  of  faith.  The  question  may  not  unnatur- 
ally be  raised,  whether  a  guide  in  faith  and  conduct  which 
thus  changes,  and  requires  us  to  judge  earlier  utterances 
by  later,  should  be  called  a  "  rule."  The  word  "  rule  "  is 
suggestive  of  mechanical  guidance,  such  as  a  man  receives 
when  he  is  told  in  definite  precise  terms  what  to  do,  and 
no  room  or  need  is  left  for  the  exercise  of  his  own 
judgment.  The  Bible  is  certainly  not  a  rule  in  this  sense. 
The  man  who  so  thinks  of  it  will  come  to  it  in  a  legal 
spirit,  and  wiU  get  from  it,  not  guidance,  but  fatal  mis- 
guidance. Eabbinism  is  what  results  from  using  the 
Bible  as  a  mechanical  rule,  a  warning  to  all  time  how 
not  to  use  the  sacred  book.  The  right  use  of  the  Bible 
requires  much  judgment,  much  spiritual  insight,  the 
power  of  appreciating  its  general  scope,  and  of  bringing  the 
drift  of  the  whole  to  bear  on  the  interpretation  of  the 
parts.  But  the  point  more  particularly  to  be  insisted  on 
is  that  the  right  use  of  the  Old  Testament  requires  that  we 
be  filled  with  the  spirit  of  the  New,  and  be  able  to  judge 
1  HoU  rti.  18. 


DEFECTS   OF   OLD   TESTAMENT    RELIGION.         325 

all  that  ki  written  in  the  more  ancient  book  in  the  light  of 
its  teaching.  This  amounts  to  saying  that  the  Bible, 
instead  of  being  a  dead  rule  to  be  used  mechanically,  with 
equal  value  set  on  all  its  parts,  is  rather  a  living  organism, 
which,  like  the  butterfly,  passes  through  various  transforma- 
tions before  arriving  at  its  highest  and  final  form. 
Therefore  the  final  stage  is  the  standard  by  which  all  is  to 
be  judged.  This  truth  has  two  sides.  It  means,  on  the  one 
hand,  that  we  should  find  Christ  in  the  Old  Testament,  as 
we  find  the  butterfly  in  the  caterpillar,  and  man,  the  crown 
of  the  universe,  in  the  fiery  cloud.  But  it  means  also,  on 
the  other  hand,  that  we  should  see  that  the  Old  Testament 
is  defective  in  so  far  as  it  comes  short  of  Christ,  as  we  see 
that  the  caterpillar  is  defective  inasmuch  as  it  is  not  yet 
a  butterfly,  and  that  the  universe  is  an  incomplete  and 
comparatively  meaningless  thing  till  the  evolutionary 
process  has  culminated  in  man.  Hitherto  the  Church  has 
has  done  ampler  justice  to  the  former  aspect  of  the  truth 
than  to  the  latter.  It  has  been  much  more  alive  to 
Christ's  presence  in  the  Old  Testament  than  to  His 
absence.  It  has,  indeed,  so  emphatically  asserted  the 
presence  as  almost  to  obliterate  the  traces  of  absence.  It 
has  so  read  Christ  into  the  Old  Testament,  that  the 
caterpillar  becomes  a  butterfly  before  the  time,  and  all 
sense  of  development,  progress,  growth  in  revelation  is 
destroyed.  The  remark  applies  especially  to  prophecy, 
which,  historically  interpreted,  is  as  a  beautiful  moonlight 
in  the  night,  but  in  the  hand  of  interpreters  too  anxious  to 
put  into  prophetic  oracles  a  specifically  Christian  meaning 
becomes  like  the  moon  in  the  daytime :  pale,  dim,  and  useless. 
But  the  remark  also  applies  to  the  moral  sentiments  and 
religious  temper  of  Old  Testament  saints  as  reflected  in 
their  writings.  These  are  not  allowed  to  appear  defective, 
as  they  occasionally  were,  but  are  apologised  for,  justified, 
transfigured,  under  an  impression  that  any  other  mode  of 
procedure  would  be  incompatible  with  the  reverence  due 
to  the  word  of  God.     Bun  up  to  its  logical  conclusion, 


326  APOLOGETICS, 

this  really  amounts  to  denying  the  New  Testament  loctrine 

of  the  rudimentary  nature  of  the  earlier  dispensation. 
Paul  compares  the  law  to  a  system  of  tutors  and  governors 
under  which  the  heir  of  the  promise  was  placed  during  the 
period  of  minority.  Should  it  surprise  us  to  find  that  the 
child's  thoughts  were  like  the  system  under  which  he  lived ; 
in  other  words,  that  there  are  traces  of  the  legal  spirit  in 
the  piety  of  the  men  to  whom  we  owe  the  Old  Testament  ? 
Why  hesitate  to  recognise  phenomena  which  simply  serve 
to  justify  the  judgment  of  the  New  Testament  on  the  epoch 
of  preparation  ?  Strongly  impressed  with  the  impolicy  of 
such  a  course,  I  proceed  to  note  some  of  the  more  out- 
standing defects  of  Old  Testament  religion  as  reflected  in 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures.* 

1.  The  prophets  and  many  of  the  psalms  exhibit  the 
highest  water-mark  of  the  Old  Testament  religion.  We 
have  but  to  recall  such  sunny  lyrics  as,  "Although  the 
fig-tree  shall  not  blossom,"  "Thy  mercy,  0  Lord,  is  in  the 
heavens,"  "  Whom  have  I  in  heaven,"  "  The  Lord  God  is 
a  sun  and  shield,"  "  They  that  wait  upon  the  Lord  shall 
renew  their  strength,"  to  be  impressed  with  the  evangelic 
spirit  of  the  writers,  and  to  feel  that  whatever  shadows  of 
legalism  may  rest  on  the  pages  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures, 
the  joy  of  sonship,  the  religion  of  trust  in  a  heavenly 
Father's  love  is  not  unknown.  Nevertheless,  the  spirit  of 
sonship  is  not  perfected  even  in  those  who,  like  the 
prophets,  came  nearest  to  the  tone  of  New  Testament 
piety.  There  is  noticeable  now  and  then  a  tone  of 
complaint,  as  of  men  who  do  not  fully  understand  and 
trust  the  loving-kindness  of  God.  Even  in  the  case  of  the 
men  who  sang,  "  Although  the  fig-tree,"  and  "  Whom  have 
I  in  heaven,"  the  mood  expressed  in  their  song  did  not 
come  easily  to  them.  It  was  a  victory  gained  in  a  severe 
struggle  with  far-reaching  doubt.  The  prophet  Habakkuk 
had   despairingly    asked    how  God  could   look  on   while 

^  In  what  foli^^  I  repeat  in  substance  statements  made  ir  Th*  Chi^&nd 
(^  Revelation  (^  150-7),  and  add  some  new  features. 


DEFECTS   OF   OLD   TESTAMENT   RELIGION.         327 

deeds  of  barbarous  cruelty  were  being  perpetrated  hj 
Dvicked  men  against  the  just,  and  the  Psalmist  had  been 
tempted  by  similar  experiences  to  doubt  whether  God  were 
good  even  to  the  pure  in  heart.  This  querulotimess,  in 
view  of  the  dark  mysteries  of  human  experience,  is  the 
weak  side  of  prophetic  piety.  It  stands  in  most  striking 
contrast  to  the  uniformly  buoyant,  invincibly  triumphant 
tone  of  the  New  Testament,  where  it  is  impossible  in  a 
single  sentence  to  find  an  echo  of  Jeremiah's  wail,  "  Where- 
fore doth  the  way  of  the  wicked  prosper?"*  On  the 
mount,  Jesus  bade  His  hearers  rejoice  in  sharing  the  fate  of 
which  the  prophets  complained :  "  Eejoice,  and  be  exceeding 
glad :  for  so  persecuted  they  the  prophets."  *  The  difference 
is  not  due  to  any  natural  superiority  in  point  of  heroism 
in  the  men  of  the  New  Testament  over  those  of  the  earKer 
dispensation.  It  was  due  rather  to  a  new  way  of 
regarding  life  which  came  in  with  Jesus  Christ,  in  virtue 
of  which  the  least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  became 
greater  than  the  greatest  of  the  prophets.  The  contrast 
in  temper  marks  a  real  advance  in  the  religious  education 
of  the  world.  The  onward  step  lay  in  what  has  been  aptly 
called  the  "  method  of  inwardness."  The  prophets  (includ- 
ing among  them  psalmists)  placed  the  good  which  marks 
God's  favour  too  much  in  outward  condition.  That  they 
did  not  do  this  exclusively  is  manifest  from  Habakkuk's 
song,  "  Although  the  fig-tree  shall  not  blossom.  .  .  .  Yet 
I  will  rejoice  in  the  Lord."  Yet  the  method  of  outward- 
ness was  that  which  came  natural  to  the  men  of  the  Old 
Testament  The  very  ideal  of  the  good  time  coming  for 
Isaiah  was  just  wise  government  and  plenty  of  food.  Nor 
was  this  a  personal  idiosyncrasy  of  that  prophet  It  arose 
directly  out  of  the  nature  of  the  Mosaic  covenant,  which 
was  a  covenant  of  Grod  with  a  nation,  and  therefore  had 
for  its  sphere  of  action  the  political  and  social  life  of  the 
people.  Moses,  in  God's  name,  promised  long  life  to 
children  who  honoured  their  parents,  and  national  pro- 
>  J«r.  ziL  1.  *  l£»tt.  ▼.  1%. 


328  APOLOGETICS. 

sperity  to  Israel  so  long  as  she  was  f.  ithful  to  Jehovah. 
Therefore  all  pious  Israelites  under  the  o;  1  covenant  were 
more  or  less  worldly  in  their  conception  of  the  summum 
honum.  Wealth,  large  families,  long  life  were  for  them 
the  appointed  rewards  of  well-doing.  For  men  with  such 
ideas  of  happiness,  springing  directly  out  of  the  Sinaitic 
covenant,  disappointments  were  inevitable,  bringing  in  their 
train  gloom,  perplexity,  doubt,  a  complaining  temper,  and 
even  a  mood  approaching  perilously  near  atheistic  pessim- 
ism, as  we  see  in  Ucclesiastes,  with  its  monotonous,  dreary 
refrain,  "  Vanity  of  vanities  " — a  mood  to  be  shunned  as 
we  shun  poison.  For  the  moral  order  of  the  world  does 
uot,  with  the  regularity  of  clock-work,  secure  a  perfect 
correspondence  between  lot  and  conduct  in  this  world, 
either  in  individual  or  in  national  experience.  One  who 
thinks  otherwise  will  be  compelled,  sooner  or  later,  by  the 
logic  of  events,  to  doubt  either  his  own  righteousness  or. the 
righteousness  of  God,  or  to  oscillate  in  sickening  restless- 
ness between  the  two  kinds  of  doubt.  Certain  parts  of 
the  Old  Testament,  such  as  the  book  of  Job,  exhibit  this 
doubt  in  all  its  length  and  breadth  and  tragic  depth.  It 
is  their  very  raison  d'Stre  to  exhibit  it.  So  viewed,  they 
are  a  very  needful  element  in  the  literature  of  the  earlier 
revelation.  In  them  the  old  covenant  pronounces  on 
itself  a  verdict  of  failure.  In  this  connection  we  can  see 
how  fitting  it  is  that  even  that  gloomy  pessimistic  book, 
Eedesiastes,  should  have  its  place  in  the  canon.  It  shows 
what  the  method  of  outwardness  comes  to,  it  is  the  method 
discredited  by  the  process  of  redudio  ad  ahsurdum.  No 
man  with  an  intelligent  conception  of  the  Old  Testament 
religion  and  its  defects  will  quarrel  with  Eedesiastes  being 
retained  in  the  canon.  The  only  good  ground  we  could 
have  for  doing  so  would  be  the  supposition  that  we  are 
bound,  if  we  leave  it  there,  to  sympathise  with  all  its 
sentiments.  But  this  supposition,  as  already  explained,  is 
«  mistaken  one  with  reference  to  the  Old  Testament  in 
general,  and  h  fortiori  with  reference  to  that  particolai 


DEFECTS   OF   OLD   TESTAMENT   RELIGION.         829 

book.  So  far  are  the  sentiments  of  the  preacher  who 
personates  Solomon  from  being  normative  and  authorita- 
tive, that  his  book  is  in  the  canon  to  show  us  rather  how 
we  ought  not  to  feel.  To  go  about  the  world  wringing 
one's  hands,  and  wearing  a  rueful  face,  and  crying  vanitas 
vanitatum,  because  the  preacher  said  it,  is  to  miss  the  great 
lesson  it  was  given  him  to  teach.  That  lesson  was  not  so 
much  that  all  is  vanity,  as  that  the  old  Sinaitic  covenant 
was  vanity — proved  to  be  vanity  by  allowing  a  son  of  the 
covenant  to  get  into  so  despairing  a  mood.  Jeremiah's 
new  covenant  is  sorely  wanted  when  it  has  come  to 
this. 

A  second  defect  in  the  Old  Testament  religion,  even  as 
professed  by  the  prophets,  was  vindidiveness.  "  Let  me  see 
Thy  vengeance  on  them,"  prays  even  the  tender-hearted 
Jeremiah,  with  reference  to  his  fellow  -  countrymen  who 
persecuted  him  on  account  of  his  faithfulness ;  *  and  many 
similar  utterances  may  be  found  in  the  prophetic  litera- 
ture and  in  the  Psalter.  It  is  not  for  us  to  condemn  those 
who  breathed  what  may  appear  to  us  so  unhallowed  peti- 
tions, or  to  assume  airs  of  superiority  over  them.  It  were 
a  shame  to  the  least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  to  any 
man  living  in  the  era  of  grace,  if  he  were  not  better  than 
the  best  of  the  Old  Testament  worthies  in  this  respect. 
For  a  higher  ideal  of  patience  has  been  set  before  us  by 
the  precepts  and  example  of  Christ,  and  as  Dr.  Owen,  com- 
menting on  the  admitted  shortcomings  of  Old  Testament 
saints,  remarks :  "  All  our  obedience,  both  in  matter  and 
manner,  is  to  be  suited  to  the  discoveries  and  revelation  of 
God  to  us."  *  The  vindictiveness  of  prophets  and  psalmists 
was  not  immorality,  but  crude  morality :  it  was  not  trans- 
gression of  a  high  standard,  as  the  like  spirit  would  be  in 
us,  but  conformity  with  a  low  standard.  The  legal  cove- 
nant allowed  and  even  fostered,  per  acddens,  such  a  spirit. 
"Eye  for  eye,  tooth  for  tooth,  hand  for  hand,  foot  for 
(cot,"*  said  the  most  ancient  code  of  civil  law  given  to 
>J«r.xz.l&        *  Fide  his  troatiae  on  thftlSOth  Psalm.        >lz,zxL24. 


330  APOLOGETICS. 

Israel  Moreover,  prayer  for  the  punishment  of  adver^ 
saries  was  made  almost  necessary  by  current  conceptions 
of  the  moral  order  of  the  world.  The  theory  was  that  God 
rewarded  every  man  according  to  his  works.  Hence  not 
to  punish  an  enemy  was  to  pronounce  a  verdict  in  his 
favour,  and  against  the  man  he  had  wronged.  The  prayer 
was  an  appeal  to  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  to  decide 
between  the  two,  the  wrong-doer  and  the  wrong-suflferer. 
The  injured  one  might  be  good  -  natured  enough  not  to 
wish  any  harm  to  the  man  who  had  treated  him  unjustly, 
but  he  could  not  afford  to  be  put  in  the  wrong  before  the 
face  of  the  world,  and  before  the  bar  of  his  own  conscience. 
It  would  be  an  intolerable  thing  that  events  should  so  fall 
out  that  he  would  be  forced  to  draw  the  inference:  God 
thinks  my  enemy  in  the  right  and  me  in  the  wrong. 
This,  not  private,  vengeful  passion,  was  the  secret  of  the 
vindictiveness  of  the  Old  Testament  saint.  In  many  cases 
private  feelings  are  out  of  the  question,  the  prayer  for 
vengeance  being  uttered  really  in  the  name  of  the  whole 
community  of  Israel.  This  remark  applies,  probably,  to 
many  of  the  so-called  vindictive  psalms.* 

All  this  may  truly  be  said  by  way  of  apology  for  the 
vindictive  element  in  Old  Testament  literature.  Neverthe- 
less there  it  is,  as  an  undeniable  fact ;  and  while  Christians 
are  not  called  on  to  sit  in  judgment  on  it  in  a  spirit  of 
self-complacency,  as  little  are  they  called  on  to  deny  its 
existence,  still  less  to  approve  and  imitate  it,  or  to  cite  it 
as  Scripture  sanction  for  cherishing  vindictive  passiong. 
Such  a  use  of  Old  Testament  Scripture,  not  unexampled  in 
Christian  times,  is  barbarous,  disgraceful,  and  disloyal  to 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 

Of  the  defects  of  the  Law,  as  contained  in  the  Penta- 
teuch, it  is  unnecessary  to  treat  at  length.  Christ  has 
said  all  that  needs  to  be  said  on  the  crudity  of  the  civil 
legislation  ascribed  to  Moses.  His  criticism  is  given  in 
few  words,  but  it  cuts  deep.  "  Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath 
»  Vide  cb»p.  viL  p.  274. 


DEFECTS   OF   OLD   TESTAMENT   RELIGION.        331 

been  said,  An  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth :  but 
I  say  unto  you.  That  ye  resist  not  evil"  ^  By  this  one 
sentence  He  constituted  Himself  a  critic  of  the  Mosaic 
civil  code,  and  made  it  appear  a  crude  kind  of  justice 
adapted  to  a  morally  rude  condition  of  society.  What  He 
implied  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  He  expressly  said  on 
another  occasion,  pronouncing  the  Mosaic  statute  of  divorce 
a  law  adapted  to  a  hard  inhuman  heart.*  One  who  has 
learned  of  Christ  can  apply  the  principle  for  himself,  and 
see  that  much  in  Israel's  statute-book  was  destined  to 
abrogation  when  the  new  covenant  came,  bringing  the 
renewed  heart  and  the  perfect  law  of  love  written  on  the 
heart. 

The  literature  of  the  post-exilic  period,  when,  according  to 
the  critics,  the  Levitical  code  first  came  into  full  operation, 
exhibits  defects  springing  out  of  the  system  under  which  it 
arose,  shadows  cast  on  the  sacred  page  by  the  Judaism 
inaugurated  by  Ezra.  The  literature  referred  to  includes 
Chronicles,  Ezra,  Nehemiah,  Esther,  and  some  of  the  Psalms. 
Three  defects  may  be  noted  here:  Philo - Leviticalism,  an 
exclusive,  hostile  attitude  towards  foreigners,  and  a  tendency 
to  morbid  self-consciousness,  or  self-righteousness. 

The  first  of  these  defects  is  conspicuous  in  the  books  of 
First  and  Second  Chronicles.  The  Philo-Levitical  spirit  of 
the  writer  has  already  more  than  once  been  adverted  to,* 
and  it  is  not  necessary  to  add  much  here  to  what  has  been 
said.  That  the  author  of  these  books  was  devoted  to  the 
temple  and  its  ritual  must  be  manifest  to  every  one  who 
takes  the  trouble  to  read  them  with  attention.  That  in 
itself  was  the  reverse  of  a  fault.  What  is  to  be  specially 
noted  is  the  excess  or  exclusiveness  of  the  interest. 
David's  sins  are  passed  over  in  silence,  and  even  his  ser- 
vices to  his  country  as  a  warrior  and  a  secular  prince  are 
hurriedly  narrated,  and  he  appears  in  these  pages  chiefly 
as  a  man  occupied  with  preparations  for  building  the 
temple,  and  the  organisation  of  worship  on  the  Levitical 
>  Ibtti  T.  88,  89.        *  Matt.  ziz.  8  ;  Mark  z.  ft.        '  VitU  pp.  279, 881. 


332  APOLOGETICS. 

model.  The  omissions  and  the  foreshortening  may  be  said 
to  be  due  to  the  point  of  view,  but  the  thing  to  be 
remarked  is  the  point  of  view  itself  and  what  it  implies. 
Leviticalism  fills  the  mind  of  the  writer.  Eitual  is  not 
only  co-ordinate  with  righteousness,  but  it  almost  seems  to 
be  the  one  thing  needful.  Devotion  to  the  temple  service 
is  apparently  the  grand  requirement.  It  is  not  to  be 
supposed,  indeed,  that  the  chronicler  is  indifferent  to  moral 
interests,  that  he  thinks  and  means  to  suggest  that  it  does 
not  matter  what  sins  a  man  commits,  though,  like  David, 
he  be  guilty  of  adultery  and  murder,  provided  always  he 
be  duly  attentive  to  the  technical  duties  of  religion.  Such 
an  impious  sentiment  is  not  in  all  his  thoughts.  Yet,  in 
his  zeal  for  religious  interests,  he  presents  a  picture  of 
David's  life  from  which  such  an  inference  might  plausibly 
be  drawn.  A  prophet  like  Amos  or  Isaiah  could  not  have 
written  Chronicles.  They  had  such  a  passion  for  righteous- 
ness, such  a  keen  sense  of  the  worthlessness  of  religion 
divorced  from  morality,  that  they  could  not  have  brought 
themselves  to  write  a  sketch  of  David's  career,  in  which  all 
the  black  features  were  left  out  and  only  his  zeal  for  God's 
worship  eulogised.  We  are  in  a  dififerent  atmosphere 
here  from  that  we  breathe  on  the  mountain  heights  of 
Hebrew  prophecy.  It  is  the  incense  -  laden  air  of  the 
sanctuary,  not  the  bracing  air  which  blows  over  the  Alpine 
heights  of  duty.* 

Traces  of  a  proud  national  self-consciousness,  combined 
with  exclusiveness  towards  foreigners,  have  been  discovered 
by  critics  in  most  of  the  books  belonging  to  the  post- exilic 
period.  Before  referring  to  texts  cited  in  proof  of  this,  it 
may  be  proper  to  point  out  that  this  defect  in  the  reli- 
gious temper  of  the  Jews  after  the  time  of  Ezra  is  not  to 
be  confounded  with  the  vindictiveness  already  mentioned. 

*  The  queation  has  been  discussed  whether  the  chronicler  followed  a  tradi- 
tion, wrote  under  the  spontaneous  influence  of  the  contemporary  spirit  of 
religion  modifying  history,  or  was  guided  by  a  consciona  didactic  aim. 
Schultz  decides  for  the  third  alternative.  Vide  AUlestameTUliche  Theologie, 
p.  70. 


DEFECTS  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT  RELIGION.        333 

That  feeling  is  a  desire  for  redress  for  wrong  done,  and  as 
such  it  may  be  cherished  against  Israelites  as  well  as  non- 
Israelites.  The  feeling  now  to  be  considered  is  one  of 
aversion  to  non-Israelites  as  such,  simply  as  "  aliens  from 
the  commonwealth  of  Israel,  and  strangers  from  the  cove- 
nants of  promise."  It  might  proceed  either  from  pride 
or  from  fear.  In  the  days  of  our  Lord  it  certainly  sprang 
mainly  from  pride.  The  religious  Jews  of  that  time, 
proudly  conscious  of  their  covenant  relation  to  God, 
regarded  the  heathen  world  with  haughty  disdain.  This 
was  what  came  of  election,  misunderstood  to  mean  a 
monopoly  of  God's  favour :  a  sullen,  proud,  narrow-hearted 
hatred  of  the  human  race.  The  question  is,  Can  any  trace 
of  this  vice  be  discovered  in  the  period  covered  by  the 
latest  canonical  books,  or  of  any  feeling  akin  to  it,  or 
capable  of  being  developed  into  it  ?  Not  certainly,  it  may 
be  said  in  the  first  place,  in  the  action  of  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah  in  insisting  on  separation  from  heathen  wives, 
and  in  refusing  to  have  fellowship  with  the  Samaritans. 
These  might  be  measures  of  mistaken  severity,  but  they 
were  prompted  not  by  pride,  but  by  fear  of  contamination. 
Further,  aversion  to  foreigners,  from  whatever  cause  pro- 
ceeding, is  certainly  not  the  sole  prevailing  tone  of  the 
post  -  exilic  literature.  As  pointed  out  in  a  previous 
chapter,  there  is  a  hearty  ring  of  universaUsm  in  some  of 
the  Psalms ;  *  and  if  the  critics  are  right  in  assigning  a  late 
date  to  the  books  of  Ruth  and  Jonah,  these  also  are  wit- 
nesses to  the  existence  among  the  Jews  after  the  captivity 
of  a  genial  kindly  feeling  towards  the  outside  peoples.'  A 
third  remark  may  be  hazarded,  viz.  that  if  even  so  much 
as  a  germ  of  the  Pharisaic  feeling  towards  the  Gentile 
world  can  be  detected  in  the  later  books,  it  would  not 
present  itself  to  the  consciousness  of  the  writer  as  it  may 

»  rid€  ch«p.  viL  pp.  278,  274. 

'Sohnlti  enggesta  that  possibly  we  should  we  in  Jomikk  tad  HW^  • 
naetion  kgaiuat  the  spirit  which  dictated  Esn's  reform.  A  Itteftmmtntliekt 
Theologie,  pi.  417. 


334  APOLOGETICS. 

appear  to  us  In  the  light  of  the  New  Testament  He  did 
not  wish  to  express  proud  contempt  or  abhorrence  of 
heathendom,  but  only  a  thankful  sense  of  privilege  and 
distinction,  not  to  be  boasted  of,  but  to  be  gratefully 
acknowledged  to  the  praise  of  divine  grace.  The  limitation 
of  spirit  is  there,  but  it  is  a  defect  arising  out  of  the  legal 
system  which  wholly  tended  in  the  direction  of  isolation ; 
not  a  vice  of  nature,  or  an  unworthy  passion  of  an  unlov- 
ing, selfish  heart. 

Traces  of  national  self-consciousness  as  against  a  godless 
heathen  world  have  been  discovered  by  such  comparatively 
circumspect  writers  as  Schultz  in  most  of  the  books 
assigned  to  the  post-exilic  literature.  In  certain  of  the 
Psalms,  e.g.  the  74th,  in  which  Israel  is  called  God's  turtle- 
dove, and  the  heathen  are  described  as  a  foolish  people.* 
In  Daniel,  where  the  land  of  Israel  is  frequently  called 
"  the  glorious  land,"  *  and  the  people  of  Israel  are  desig- 
nated as  "  the  saints  of  the  Most  High."  *  In  Chronicles, 
where  even  the  kingdom  of  the  ten  tribes  seems  to  be 
treated  as  a  heathen  country,  and  as  such  all  but  ignored 
as  not  worthy  of  a  place  in  the  history  of  God's  people ; 
and  where  the  misfortunes  of  kings  of  Judah,  as  of 
Jehoshaphat  in  connection  with  his  shipping  enterprise, 
are  traced  to  alliances  with  heretical  kings  of  Israel.*  In 
Esther  above  all,  where  the  vindictive  spirit  agamst 
heathen  foes  reaches  a  ferocity  difficult  to  account  for 
otherwise  than  by  regarding  it  as  an  outbreak  of  unre- 
strained natural  passion  against  persons  who,  as  belonging 
to  the  goint,  were  not  supposed  to  have  any  claims  to 
humane  treatment.* 

In  the  Pharisaic  character  a  proud  self-consciousness  as 

1  Verses  18  and  19,  «  Oh»p.  viiL  9,  xi.  1«,  4L 

»  Chap.  vii.  18,  21,  25,  27. 

*  2  Chron.  xx.  35.  The  explanation  of  the  disaster  given  by  the  writer  ii 
all  the  more  remarkable  that  in  the  corresponding  narrative  in  1  Eings 
£xii.  49  Ahaziah  asks  permission  to  join  in  the  venture,  and  Jehoshaphat 
y%fu8eo. 

^  Vide  on  all  these  and  other  texts,  Schultz,  pp.  415-419.     With  reference 


DEFECTS   OF   OLD   TESTAMENT   RELIGION.         33 S 

towards  the  heathen  world  was  accompanied  with  an 
equally  proud  self-consciousness  as  towards  God.  Is  there 
any  trace  of  the  latter  feeling  in  the  later  literature  of  the 
Hebrew  canon  ?  We  should  not  be  surprised  if  there 
were ;  for  Judaism,  laying  so  much  stress  on  ritual,  did 
tend  to  develop  that  outward  formal  type  of  righteousness 
with  which  self-satisfaction  is  apt  to  be  associated.  The 
appearance  of  such  traces  in  canonical  books  of  the 
Judaistic  period  would  only  serve  to  advertise  the  fact 
that  Israel's  religion  had  entered  on  a  phase  which 
involved  certain  spiritual  perils,  and  to  prepare  us  for  the 
state  of  matters  with  which  the  Gospels  make  us 
acquainted.  Now  as  to  the  question  of  fact,  it  would 
seem  that,  while  there  is  no  trace  of  inculcation  of  self- 
righteousness,  there  are  some  unconscious  manifestations 
of  what  wears  a  suspicious  resemblance  to  it,  in  the 
characters  of  the  men  who  come  under  our  notice  at  this 
period.  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  remark  on  the 
peculiar  tone  of  Nehemiah's  prayers,  a  phenomenon  which 
attracted  my  attention  many  years  ago,  when  I  should 
hardly  have  felt  at  liberty  to  pursue  such  a  line  of  thought 
as  that  which  occupies  us  in  the  present  chapter.  Those 
ejaculatory  petitions,  "Remember  me,  O  my  God,  for 
good,"  struck  me  then  as  they  strike  me  now,  as  something 
novel,  something  needing  explanation,  something  not  quite 
in  keeping  with  Pauline  ideas  of  justification.  I  have  also 
alluded  to  the  consciousness  of  perfect  national  rectitude 
expressed  in  the  44th  Psalm,  in  the  words,  "  All  this  is 
come  upon  us;  yet  have  we  not  forgotten  Thee,  neither 
have  we  dealt  falsely  in  Thy  covenant  Our  heart  is  not 
turned  back,  neither  have  our  steps  declined  from  Thy 
way."  *    This  is  not  necessarily  self-righteousness,  for  there 

to  Esther,  Driver  {Introduction,  p.  457)  remarka :  "It  must  be  admitted 
that  the  spirit  of  Esther  is  not  that  which  prevails  generally  in  the  Old 
Testament ;  bnt  we  hare  no  right  to  demand  upon  d  priori  grounds,  that  in 
•Tery  part  of  the  biblical  record  the  human  interests  of  the  narrator  should 
In  the  sama  degree  be  subordinated  to  the  spirit  of  Qod." 
1  Yerses  17, 18. 


339  APOLOOETICa. 

is  such  a  thing  m  suffering  for  righteonsness*  sake  in 
national  as  in  individual  experienca  Yet  the  utterance 
stands  in  striking  contrast  to  the  prophetic  habit  of 
thought,  and  it  is  possible  that  the  Psalmist  speaks  out  of 
the  consciousness  of  a  time  when  holiness  was  placed  too 
much  in  compliance  with  sacrificial  rites  and  ceremonial 
rules,  and  not  enough  in  doing  justice,  loving  mercy,  and 
walking  humbly  with  God.* 

These  and  other  defects  *  of  Old  Testament  piety  present 
no  stumbling-block  to  intelligent  Christian  faitL  They 
only  help  to  make  it  evident  that  God,  who  in  many  parts 
and  many  modes  had  spoken  to  Israel  by  prophets  and 
psalmists,  had  not  yet  uttered  His  final,  because  perfect, 
word.  They  show  that  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  while  a 
true  light  from  heaven,  were  but  a  light  shining  in  a  dark 
place  until  the  dawn  of  day. 

1  In  this  passage,  as  also  in  Ps.  vii.  9,  10,  xrll.  S-6,  zrvL  1-5,  Oheyne 
{Batnpton  Lectures  on  the  Psalter,  p.  369)  finds  "professiona  of  innocenoe 
which  are  at  variance  with  the  normal  Christian  sentiment." 

*  The  food  of  Daniel  and  his  oompaniona  at  the  king's  cotirt  has  been 
supposed  to  indicate  the  ascetic  spirit  as  an  element  in  the  Jewish  religion 
at  the  time  the  book  was  written.  In  reference  to  the  whole  religious  spirit 
of  Judaism  at  this  period,  Schultz  remarks :  ' '  Die  Religion  wird  mehr  zum 
(}esetze.  Aus  der  Sittlichkeit  wird  das  Vollbringen  der  Gesetzen-werke. " 
He  refers  in  proof  to  1  Chron.  ▼.  25,  z.  10,  xiiL  10,  zxriii.  7,  zzix.  19  ] 
Esther ir.  8,  16  (fasting,  etc.) ;  Pa.  clzix.  164  (prayer  seven  timm  m  day); 
Duk  i>  t-18  (ascetio  abstinanca),  H.  19  (methodised  prajerX 


BOOK   III. 

THB  CHRISTIAN  ORIOINA 

CHAPTER  I 
jssva 

LlTEBATUBE. — The  Livts  of  JesfUB  by  Farrar,  Geikie,  Keim, 

Weiss,  Kenan,  etc.;  Bruce,  The  Kingdom  of  God,  4th  ed; 
Dale,  T?ie  Living  Christ  and  the  Four  Gospels;  Stearns,  Ths 
Evidence  of  Christian  Experience  (the  Ely  Lectures  for  1890) ; 
Herrmann,  Der  Verkehr  des  Christen  mit  Gott,  2te  Aufl.  1892 ; 
Gore's  Bampton  Lectwres  on  the  Incarnation,  Lecture  VL; 
T.  H.  Green,  Works,  vol.  iiL,  Essay  on  "  Christian  Dogma  " ; 
Wendt,  The  Teaching  of  Jesus  (T.  &  T.  Clark,  1892). 

Jesns  of  Nazareth  is  represented  in  the  Gospels  as  the 
Christ,  the  Godlike  King  of  Hebrew  prophecy,  the  fulfiUer 
of  Israel's  highest  hopes  and  brightest  ideals,  the  august 
Person  in  whom  the  history  of  the  chosen  people  cul- 
minated, and  the  divine  purpose  in  her  election  found  its 
consummation  and  interpretation.  And  the  Christian 
Church  in  every  age  has  accepted  this  representation  as 
true ;  that  the  man  Jesus  was  all  this  is  her  firm  faith. 
But  if  Jesus  was  the  Christ,  Christ  was  also  Jesiis,  a  man 
who  lived  in  Palestine  at  a  certain  date,  of  very  unique 
moral  and  religious  character,  and  very  welcome  for  His 
own  sake,  apart  altogether  from  His  relation  to  the  previoua 
history  of  the  world  in  general,  or  of  Israel  in  particular. 
And  there  are  moods  of  mind  in  which  one  desires  to  look 

Y 


338  APOLOGBTICS. 

at  the  man  apart  from  His  official  titles  and  dignities,  juat 
as  one  might  go  to  Palestine  desiring  to  see  what  the  naked 
eye  can  see,  forgetting  for  the  time  all  the  sacred  historical 
memories  connected  with  its  hills,  and  vaUeys,  and  lakes, 
and  streams.  There  are  probably  many  in  the  present 
time  who  are  in  this  mood.  The  title  "  Christ "  sounds 
foreign  and  stale  to  their  ear,  and  is  suggestive  only  of 
religious  delusion,  the  symbol  of  an  extinct  Aherglaube,  or 
extra-belief.  But  the  Jesus  to  whom  it  was  applied  still 
interests  them.  In  spite  of  theological  scepticism — nay, 
partly  in  consequence  of  it,  the  conviction  remains,  and 
gains  in  force,  that  the  hero  of  the  evangelic  story  is  the 
sweetest,  most  winsome,  and  most  powerful  character  in 
the  whole  history  of  humanity.  They  desire  to  become 
better  acquainted  with  Him.  They  wish  to  know  the  real 
historical  person  called  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  being  persuaded 
that  the  better  He  is  known  in  the  actual  truth  of  His  life 
the  better  He  will  be  esteemed.  They  are  impatient  of 
the  trappings  with  which  faith  has  invested  His  person, 
the  official  robes  and  the  aureole  round  his  brow.  Take 
these  things  away,  they  exclaim ;  we  would  see  Jesus. 

There  need  be  no  quarrel  with  this  mood,  or  any  un- 
willingness to  let  it  have  its  way.  We  are,  of  course,  all 
aware  that  it  is  a  very  crude  sort  of  Christianity  that  looks 
at  Jesus  apart  from  His  connection  with  the  antecedent 
history  of  His  peopla  Marcionism,  with  its  Jesus  in  the 
air,  cannot  be  more  than  a  stepping-stone  to  a  higher  and 
more  abiding  form  of  faith.  But  that  it  may  be  ;  that,  for 
those  in  the  mood  described,  it  must  ba  You  cannot 
make  them  Christians  by  the  method  of  catechetical  in- 
struction intended  to  fill  the  mind  with  orthodox  opiniona. 
Neither  can  you  make  them  Christians  by  the  method  of 
evangelism,  which,  taking  for  granted  conventional  ortho- 
doxy, makes  its  appeal  to  the  emotions.  These  methods 
have  probably  both  been  tried,  and  have  failed.  They 
must  therefore  be  allowed  to  begin  at  the  beginning,  and 
to  learn   Christianity  de  novo,  as  the  disciples  of  Jesus 


JBSU8.  339 

learned  it;  becoming  acquainted  first  with  the  man,  and 
then  advancing  gradually  to  higher  views  of  His  person 
and  work.  It  is  a  slow  process  at  the  best,  and  there  is 
a  risk  of  its  stopping  short  at  the  rudimentary  stage ;  but 
when  it  goes  on  to  its  consummation,  it  yields  a  far  higher 
type  of  faith  and  discipleship  than  can  be  reached  by  any 
short  and  easy  way.  Let  an  inquirer  first  see  the  man 
Jesua,  and  love  Him  so  seen,  and  then  pass  on  to  higher 
affirmations  with  full  intelligence  and  perfect  sincerity, 
and  you  shall  find  in  him  one  who  brings  to  the  service 
of  the  kingdom  of  God,  not  opinion  merely,  or  emotion, 
but  the  whole  heart  and  mind :  "  aU  that  is  within " 
him. 

This  being  so,  it  would  seem  as  if  the  way  of  becoming 
a  Christian  just  indicated  were  not  only  the  way  necessary 
to  be  taken  in  certain  cases,  but  the  desirable  way  in  all 
cases.  It  is  not,  and  never  will  be,  the  way  of  the  majority, 
and  yet  it  may  be  the  better  and  the  best  way.  That  it 
is  so,  indeed,  might  be  asserted  with  confidence  on  the 
authority  of  the  Master.  His  method  of  dealing  with  men 
in  quest  of  the  highest  good  seems  to  have  been  in  accord- 
ance with  that  indicated  as  the  ideally  best.  He  did  not 
come  with  all  His  claims  and  titles,  and  make  recognition 
of  these  the  first  condition  of  discipleship.  He  was  in  no 
haste  to  get  men  to  make  correct  religious  affirmations 
concerning  Himself,  but  rather  took  pains  first  to  lay  sound 
moral  foundations  of  religious  belief.  He  not  only  did  not 
demand  that  candidates  for  discipleship  should  commence 
by  calling  Him  Christ,  Lord,  Grod,  Saviour,  but  He  posi- 
tively discouraged  the  use  of  all  such  titles  till  men  had 
an  approximately  correct  idea  of  their  significance.  At 
Cffisarea  Philippi,  when  Peter  made  the  confession,  "  Thou 
art  the  Christ,"  He  charged  His  disciples  that  they  should 
tell  no  man  that  He  was  the  Christ.*  That  is,  He  wanted 
no  man  to  caU  Him  Christ  who  did  not  in  some  degree 
onderstand  the  true  meaning  of  the  title,  but  used  it  in  a 
1  Matt  xTi.  SO. 


340  APOLOOETIOS. 

merely  traditional  sense.  To  the  seeker  after  eternal  !ife 
who  accosted  Him  as  "  Good  Master,"  He  addressed  the 
sharp  interrogation,  '*  Why  callest  thou  me  good  ?  "  as  if  to 
gay,  make  not  goodness  a  matter  of  compliment;  call  no 
man  good  till  you  know  what  goodness  is,  and  whether  the 
person  to  whom  you  apply  the  epithet  deserves  it.^  Yet, 
while  virtually  advising  this  inquirer  to  suspend  his  judg- 
ment as  to  the  applicability  of  the  epithet  "good"  to 
Himself,  Jesus,  we  note,  invites  him  to  immediate  disciple- 
ship  :  "  Go,  sell  that  thou  hast,  and  come,  follow  me,"  Had 
he  complied  with  the  invitation,  he  would  gradually  have 
learned  the  nature  of  true  goodness,  and  that  the  Master  he 
had  chosen  as  his  guide  was  indeed  good.  He  would  also 
have  learned  betimes  to  make  important  religious  affirmations 
3oncerning  the  Master,  such  as  that  He  was  the  Christ,  or 
the  Son  of  God.  And  these  affirmations  coming  in  due 
course  would  have  had  real  value  and  life-giving  power. 
It  could  bring  no  real  benefit  to  him  to  call  Jesus  either 
good  or  God  while  he  remained  in  ignorance  of  the  spirit 
of  Jesus,  and  was  so  far  unacquainted  with  the  nature  of 
true  goodness  as  to  imagine,  for  example,  that  the  Pharisees 
and  the  Eabbis  were  good.  It  can  do  no  one  good  to  call 
an  unknown  man  God ;  still  less  to  apply  that  solemn 
designation  to  a  man  whose  character  and  spirit  are  fatally 
misconceived.  The  virtue  lies  in  the  belief  that  God  is 
like,  yea  is,  the  well-known  man  Jesus  the  Good.' 

It  thus  appears  that  Christ's  sanction  might  fairly  be 
cited  in  support  of  the  policy  of  postponing  consideration 
of  His  higher  claims,  and  making  it  the  first  business  to 
become  intimately  and  truly  acquainted  with  the  historical 

'  Mark  z.  18.  In  the  corresponding  passage  in  Matthew  Christ's  ques- 
tion,  according  to  the  best  reading,  was :  "  Why  askest  thou  me  concerning 
the  good ! "  The  discrepancy  in  the  reports  raises  the  question  which  version 
comes  nearest  to  what  Jesus  actually  said.  I  content  myself  with  saying 
that  the  question  put  into  Christ's  month  by  Mark  and  Lake  is  rery  charac- 
teristic, true  to  Christ's  whole  manner  of  dealing  with  religioiu  inqnirvn 
and  aspirants  to  discipleship. 

•  Vide  my  Kingdom  qf  Ood,  4th  ed.  chji|^  XT. 


jEsua.  841 

person  so  far  as  that  is  possible.  The  desire  to  kuow  the 
Jesus  of  history,  stripped  bare  of  theological  investiture, 
far  from  being  an  impiety,  is  a  reversion  to  the  method  of 
the  Author  of  our  faitL  This  consideration  may  encourage 
men  adrift  on  the  sea  of  doubt  to  be  thorough  in  their  search 
for  truth  without  fear  of  consequences.  Haunting  fears  of 
eternal  loss  are  a  great  hindrance  to  thoroughness  in  religion. 
What  if  I  should  die  while  the  quest  goes  on,  and  truth 
is  still  not  found  ?  What  if  I  should  be  launched  into 
eternity  when  I  have  only  reached  the  lowest  stage  of 
Christian  belief,  the  sincere  passionate  conviction  that 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  a  good  man,  the  one  man  I  have 
known  whom  I  could  trust  and  love  with  all  my  heart  ? 
Must  I  not  make  myself  safe  by  hastily  patching  up  my 
sadly-tattered  creed,  and  accepting  in  the  slump  all  con- 
ventional, orthodox  declarations  concerning  the  Person  of 
Jesus  and  the  significance  of  His  death  ?  "  Who  is  among 
you  that  feareth  the  Lord  "  and  "  walketh  in  darkness  ? " 
Let  him  trust  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  and  abstain  from 
kindling  for  himself  fires  in  the  night  that  shall  blaze 
brightly  for  a  while,  then  go  out  and  leave  him  in  deeper 
darkness.  Let  him  be  loyal  to  truth,  and  leave  his  soul 
in  the  hands  of  God.  How  foolish  to  think  that  one  can 
save  himself  from  the  living  God,  searcher  of  hearts,  by  an 
orthodox  system  of  theology  hastily  adopted  for  prudential 
reasons  1  And  why  entertain  solicitudes  to  which  Jesus 
was  a  stranger  ?  He  did  not  bid  men  hurry  up  and  make 
haste  to  be  orthodox,  under  pain  of  damnation  if  death 
overtook  them  while  they  were  only  on  the  way,  and  not 
at  the  goal  He  acted  as  if  He  believed  that  men  were  in 
a  saved  condition  when  their  face  was  turned  in  the  right 
direction — toward  God,  truth,  and  righteousness,  however 
far  they  might  be  from  having  attained  the  object  of  their 
quest  The  prodigal  had  a  far  way  to  go  to  his  father's 
house,  but  in  the  view  of  Jesus  he  was  a  new  man  from 
the  moment  he  said,  "  I  will  arise,  and  go  to  my  father." 
But  the  question  may  be  raised.  Has  the  method  of 


342  APOLOOSTICa. 

learning  Christianity  recommended  by  Jesus  not  been 
rendered  difficult  or  impossible  by  the  way  in  which  Hia 
first  disciples  have  treated  His  life  ?  The  question  con- 
cerns the  historicity  of  the  evangelic  narratives.  It  may  be 
said,  it  has  recently  been  said  with  startling  emphasis,  that 
none  of  the  Gospels,  not  even  those  which  are  compara- 
tively trustworthy, — the  Gospels  of  Matthew,  Mark,  and 
Luke — are  written  in  a  historical  spirit,  by  men  whose 
first  concern  was  to  ascertain  facts  and  report  them  exactly, 
but  rather  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  verifying  a  religious 
belief  concerning  the  subject  of  the  narrations.  The  evan- 
gelists, it  is  held,  were  concerned  supremely,  not  about  the 
facts,  but  about  the  religious  significance  of  the  facts.  And 
they  have  taken  no  pains  to  keep  the  facts  and  their  value 
for  faith  apart,  so  that  readers  might  have  it  in  their 
power  to  know  intimately  the  man  Jesus,  before  being 
asked  or  expected  to  make  any  theological  affirmations 
concerning  Him,  such  as  that  He  was  the  Christ. 

Now  it  must  be  admitted  that  there  is  a  measure  of 
truth  in  this  representation.  Fact  and  faith  are  blended 
together  in  all  the  Gospels,  and  can  only  be  separated  by 
a  critical  process ;  and  for  one  who  handles  the  materials 
in  a  purely  scientific  spirit  without  religious  prepossessions, 
it  may  in  some  instances  remain  doubtful  how  far  the 
statements  of  the  evangelists  can  be  accepted  as  historical. 
But  it  is  very  possible  to  indulge  in  exaggeration  here, 
and  it  may  confidently  be  affirmed  that  the  sceptical  or 
agnostic  temper  has  been  carried  to  excess  in  connection 
with  the  history  of  Jesus.  We  are  all  apt  to  be  uncon- 
sciously influenced  by  our  bias.  If  some  are  too  ready  to 
receive  with  uncritical  credence  the  things  that  are  written 
in  the  Gospels,  others  are  far  too  suspicious,  whether 
biassed,  as  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Huxley,  by  a  severely 
scientific  habit  of  mind,  or,  as  in  the  case  of  Dr.  Martineau, 
by  a  theory  as  to  the  inner  light  being  the  sole  source  of 
revelation.  When  a  man  happens  to  believe  that  he  can 
do  without  an  objective  light  of  the  world,  he  can  afford  to 


CEBITS.  843 

be  Teiy  sceptical  as  to  the  existence  of  such  a  light, — 
nay,  if  he  be  in  a  small  minority  in  maintaining  the 
sufficiency  of  the  inner  light,  he  may  be  tempted  to  raise 
a  mist  of  doubt  about  the  sun  that  no  alternative  may  be 
left  but  to  trust  in  the  guidance  of  the  candle. 

To  open-minded  men  neither  unduly  dogmatic  nor  unduly 
sceptical,  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  historical  Jesus  will 
not  seem  unattainable.  That  such  knowledge  is  possible  ia 
a  fair  inference  from  the  fact  that  so  many  have  attempted 
to  write  the  Life  of  Jesus.  Some  indeed,  such  as  Strauss, 
have  written  in  a  predominantly  sceptical  spirit,  having  for 
their  leading  aim  to  show  that  of  the  subject  of  the  evan- 
gelic story  little  can  be  known.  But  others,  such  as  Keim, 
entirely  free  from  orthodox  prepossessions,  and  proceeding 
on  the  principles  of  a  naturalistic  philosophy,  have  entered 
on  their  task  with  the  conviction  that  the  Gospels  contain 
a  large  amount  of  genuinely  historical  material,  and  by  the 
literary  result  of  their  studies  have  succeeded  in  producing 
a  similar  conviction  in  the  minds  of  their  readers.  Even 
without  the  aid  of  elaborate  "  Lives  of  Jesus,"  a  candid 
inquirer  may  attain  a  comfortable  sense  of  the  knowable- 
ness  of  Jesus,  by  an  unaided  use  of  the  Gospels.  In 
reading  these  memoirs  you  feel  as  one  sometimes  feels  in 
a  picture  gallery.  Your  eye  alights  on  the  portrait  of  a 
person  you  do  not  know.  You  look  at  it  intently  for  a 
few  moments,  and  then  you  remark  to  a  companion,  that 
must  be  like  the  original,  it  is  so  real,  so  life-like.  This 
sense  of  verisimilitude  has  at  least  subjective  if  not  ob- 
jective value.  It  stimulates  to  further  inquiry,  and  creates 
the  needful  hope  and  patience  for  its  successful  prosecution. 

This  feeling  of  reality  may  not  be  produced  in  the  same 
degree  by  all  the  four  Gospels.  It  is  indeed,  as  is  well 
known,  in  not  a  few  instances  confined  to  the  Synoptical 
Gospels,  which  by  comparison  with  the  Fourth  have  appeared 
to  many  in  s  marked  degree  stamped  with  an  aspect  of 
historicity.  This  prejudice  against  the  Fourth  Gospel,  so 
far  as  it  is  sympathised  with  by  any  one  in  quest  of  a  Ten 


344  AFOLOGEnOS. 

table  knowledge  of  Christ,  may  be  provisionally  utilised  as 
a  means  of  confirming  his  first  impression  regarding  the 
other  three.  No  candid  man  will  allow  the  prejudice  to 
settle  down  without  further  inquiry  into  a  final  judgment 
as  to  the  claims  of  that  Gospel  to  be  a  reliable  source  of 
knowledge  concerning  the  work  and  teaching  of  Jesus. 
But  till  the  Johannine  problem  is  solved  the  inquirer  may 
legitimately  extract  aid  to  a  weak  faith  even  from  the 
diversity  of  the  impressions  made  upon  his  mind  by  the 
different  sources.  Do  the  Synoptical  Gospels  seem  to  him 
to  present  a  real  unmistakably  historical  character,  reserv- 
ing doubts  about  details,  in  particular  about  the  miraculous 
element  connected  with  the  birth,  the  public  ministry,  and 
the  resurrection  ?  On  the  other  hand,  does  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  even  in  those  portions  in  which  no  miraculous 
element  is  present,  convey  the  impression  of  a  personality 
noble  but  idealised  ?  Let  him  use  the  contrast,  not  indeed 
as  conclusively  proving  the  ideality  of  the  Johannine 
Christ,  but  as  a  means  of  strengthening  his  sense  of  the 
reality  of  the  Synoptical  Christ.  The  very  consciousness 
of  contrast  is  evidence  that  the  critical  spirit  is  at  work, 
and  that  the  impression  of  the  verisimilitude  of  the  Synopti- 
cal Christ  is  not  a  baseless  caprice. 

It  is  open  to  us  to  confirm  our  faith  in  the  historicity  of 
the  Synoptical  Jesus  by  another  line  of  comparison.  It^is 
familiar  to  all  readers  of  the  New  Testament  how  veiy 
few  allusions  to  facts  in  the  life  of  Jesus  are  contained 
in  the  Epistles  of  the  Apostle  Paul  By  a  careful  search 
one  might  discover  more  than,  after  a  hasty  perusal,  he 
expects ;  nevertheless  the  broad  fact  remains  that  Paul  is 
nearly  as  sparing  in  his  references  to  the  Great  Biography 
as  he  Is  to  the  scenery  of  the  various  countries  he  passed 
through  on  his  missionary  journeys.  Two  facts  only  in 
the  history  of  Jesus  seem  to  have  interest  for  him:  the 
eracifixion  and  the  resurrection ;  and  these  possess  interest 
to  his  mind  not  as  mere  facts,  but  on  account  of  their 
momentooB  religious   significance.      He   appears   to   care 


JBBUli  345 

nothing  for  what  we  call  the  Life  of  Jesus,  but  only  for 
the  doctrine  of  Christ's  atoning  work  and  Divine  Per- 
sonality. His  interest  in  Christ  is  purely  religious,  not  at 
all  biographical,  and  his  presentation  of  Christ  is  dominated 
throughout  by  theological  ideas. 

With  the  synoptical  evangelists  the  case  is  far  otherwise. 
Their  interest  is  by  no  means  purely  or  even  predominantly 
dogmatic :  they  love  to  tell  stories  about  Jesus  which  show 
what  manner  of  man  He  was,  how  He  appeared  from  day 
to  day  to  His  chosen  companions.  The  materials  collected 
in  their  Gospels  owe  their  origin  to  a  different  type  of  mind 
from  that  of  Paul.  They  bear  witness  to  the  existence 
in  the  Palestine  Church  of  a  "  simple  healthy  objectivity 
which  desired  to  know  the  facts  about  Christ,  to  ascertain 
as  far  as  possible  what  He  said  and  did,  to  get  a  clear  vivid 
picture  of  His  life  and  human  personality."  *  If  the  com- 
panions of  Jesus  and  those  to  whom  they  preached  had 
been  as  intensely  subjective  as  Paul,  and  as  preoccupied 
with  a  few  great  ideas,  these  memoirs  of  the  Lord  would 
never  have  come  into  existence.  And  that  they  were  not 
so  preoccupied  these  memoirs  sufficiently  attest  For  while 
they  do  not  possess  the  character  of  a  colourless  chronicle 
uninfluenced  by  faith,  they  are  certainly  by  comparison 
with  Paul's  letters  very  lacking  in  what  we  may  call  the 
theological  interest  They  contain  little  more  than  theo- 
logical germs,  the  mere  rudiments  of  a  doctrine  of  atone- 
ment, or  of  Christ's  Person,  or  of  the  Church.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  the  dogmatic  theologian  this  feature  of 
the  Synoptical  Gospels  may  be  disappointing.  Indeed,  it 
may  be  said  with  some  measure  of  truth  that  the  low 
doctrinal  position  of  these  Gospels  has  led  to  their  being 
largely  neglected  in  favour  of  the  more  theological  writings 
of  the  great  apostle  of  the  Gentiles :  a  neglect  which  has 
brought  upon  the  Church,  especially  on  the  Protestant 
section  of  it,  a  serious  penalty  in  the  form  of  spiritual 
impoverishment  But  not  to  dwell  on  this,  what  I  wish 
*  7%e  Kingdom  of  Ood,  4th  ed.  p.  335. 


346  ▲POLOGETICS. 

now  to  point  oat  ia  that  that  very  feature  of  the  Gospeli 

which  makes  them  disappointing  to  the  dogmatist,  is  of 
great  value  to  the  apologist.  Broadly  put,  the  apologetic 
position  is  this :  the  less  dogmatic  presumably  the  more 
historical  Are  the  Synoptical  Gospels  deficient  in  materials 
for  the  construction  of  a  system  of  Christian  doctrines  ? 
Then  the  fair  inference  is  that  the  evangelists  were  not 
supremely  concerned  about  theology,  but  had  it  for  their 
chief  desire  to  give  a  vivid  true  picture  of  Jesus  as  He 
appeared  to  the  men  who  had  been  with  Him. 

On  these  grounds  the  earnest  inquirer  may  with  all  con- 
fidence trust  his  first  impressions  of  the  Synoptical  Gospels, 
and  come  to  them  in  good  hope  of  acquiring  a  true  knowledge 
of  the  historic  Jesus.  They  will  find  there  facts  abund- 
antly sufficient  for  the  exhibition  of  a  character  of  unique 
moral  and  religious  worth  which  is  no  invention,  but  one 
worked  out  on  the  stage  of  real  life.  The  best  thing  they 
can  do  for  their  spiritual  wellbeing  is  to  go  to  the  school 
of  the  evangelists  and  learn  of  Jesus.  If  they  truly  desire 
eternal  life,  this  is  their  wise  course.  They  will  there  learn 
at  once  the  nature  of  true  goodness,  and  what  solid 
grounds  there  are  for  calling  Jesus  uniquely  good.  These 
are  the  first  two  lessons  in  the  Christian  religion,  the 
foundation  of  all  that  follows,  as  our  Lord  declared  by 
implication  when  He  asked  the  aspirant,  "Why  callest  thou 
me  good  ?  He  did  not,  as  some  supposed,  mean  thereby 
to  imply  that  He  was  conscious  of  moral  defect  His  aim 
rather  was  to  give  a  first  lesson  in  the  way  to  eternal  life. 
In  effect  the  question  meant :  learn  first  of  all  what  good- 
ness is,  and  call  no  man  good  till  you  are  sure  that  he 
deserves  it  The  practical  way  to  work  out  this  programme 
was  to  become  a  disciple  of  Jesus.  In  His  company  the 
inquirer  would  solve  two  problems  at  one  stroke :  discover 
the  nature  of  the  highest  good,  and  perceive  at  the  same 
time  that  the  ideal  of  goodness  was  realised  in  the  Master 
whom  he  followed. 

The  question,  What  is  good  f  is  always  one  demanding 


/I8U&  347 

careful  discriminating  consideration.  At  no  time  is  it  safe 
to  assume  the  accuracy  of  conventional  notions  on  that  sub- 
ject. Least  of  all  was  it  safe  in  the  time  of  Jesus.  There 
were  two  competing  types  of  goodness  in  Judaea,  then, 
between  which  men  had  to  choose,  that  of  Jesus  and  that 
of  the  scribes.  What  a  difference !  how  utterly  incom- 
patible, how  idle  to  call  any  man  "  good "  until  it  was 
settled  which  of  the  two  types  was  to  be  preferred !  The 
thoughts  and  ways  of  Jesus,  it  is  as  certain  as  anything  can 
be,  differed  radically  from  those  of  most  of  His  Jewish  con- 
temporaries on  all  subjects  pertaining  to  morals  and  religion. 
Kighteousness,  goodness,  both  theoretically  and  practically, 
was  quite  another  thing  for  Him  from  what  it  was  for  them. 
The  righteousness  of  the  Eabbis  consisted  in  observing 
innumerable  minute  rules  regarding  washing,  fasting,  tithe- 
paying,  Sabbath-keeping,  and  the  like,  in  being  very  self- 
complacent  on  account  of  their  observances,  and  in  think- 
ing very  meanly  of  all  who  were  not  as  strict  as  themselves. 
Scrupulosity,  vanity,  and  contempt  made  up  the  current 
type  of  goodness  as  embodied  in  the  Pharisaic  character. 
In  the  character  of  Jesus,  as  most  realistically  portrayed 
in  the  Gospels,  we  meet  with  a  startling  contrast.  There  is 
not  only  a  total  lack  of  conformity  to  the  Pharisaic  type, 
but  a  very  pronounced  antipathy  to  it  This  indeed  is  the 
foremost  feature  in  the  new  type  of  goodness,  an  intense 
detestation  of  counterfeit  goodness.  Jesus,  as  He  appears 
in  the  Gospels,  was  gentle  and  charitable  beyond  expres- 
sion ;  yet  His  abhorrence  of  spurious  holiness  amounted 
to  a  passion.  What  He  detested  He  was  not  likely  to 
imitate,  and  accordingly  in  no  particular  did  His  righteous- 
ness resemble  that  of  the  scribes  and  Pharisees.  He  was, 
for  example,  entirely  free  from  religiou*  scmjpulosUy,  as  we 
see  from  His  mode  of  keeping  the  Sabbath,  and  from  His 
neglect  of  the  traditionary  rules  of  the  scribes  respecting 
ablutions,  fastings,  etc.  This  free  way  of  life  was  not,  as 
many  imagined,  licentiousness,  but  a  better  way  of  serving 
God  springing  out  of  a  different  idea  of  God  from  that 


348  APOLOQETICS. 

cherished  bj  the  scribes.  The  scribes  had  no  real  faitk 
in  the  goodness  or  grace  of  God.  They  thought  of  God  as 
a  severe,  exacting  taskmaster,  whose  commands  were  not 
only  high  and  difiBcult,  but  grievous.  Hence  they  served 
Him  in  fear,  lest  by  the  most  minute  departure,  even  by 
inadvertence,  from  the  bare  letter  of  the  law  they  should 
incur  the  divine  displeasure  with  its  attendant  penalties. 
Jesus,  on  the  contrary,  had  the  most  absolute  faith  in  God's 
benignity.  He  loved  God  as  a  Father,  and  served  Him  as 
a  Son,  cheerfully,  devotedly,  and  without  dread,  regarding 
His  will  as  good  and  perfect  and  acceptable,  and  not  doubt- 
ing that  He  judged  conduct  reasonably,  setting  value  not 
on  outward  conformity  to  mechanical  rules,  but  on  the 
inward  spirit.  The  Rabbis  feared  that  God  would  be  angry 
if  they  did  not  pay  their  tithes  with  such  scrupulous  exact- 
ness as  to  include  among  the  taxable  articles  garden  herbs. 
To  Jesus  such  fear  appeared  a  foolish  superstition  and  an 
injury  to  God.  It  was  incredible  to  Him  that  God  could 
be  angry  with  men  for  such  a  reason.  He  believed  that 
God's  displeasure  rested  on  selfishness,  pride,  cruelty, 
injustice,  falsehood,  not  on  petty  breaches  of  man-made 
rules  invented  to  be  a  hedge  about  the  law. 

Again,  and  above  all,  the  goodness  of  Jesus  was  dis- 
tinguished from  the  current  type  by  its  humanity.  One 
of  His  chief  grounds  of  quarrel  with  the  traditional  type  of 
goodness  was  that  it  was  inhuman,  did  not  care  for  the 
people,  but  despised  them  as  ignorant  and  profane,  and 
contemplated  their  moral  degradation  with  heartless  apathy 
and  even  calm  satisfaction.  He,  for  His  part,  loved  the  people 
dearly,  pitied  them,  sought  their  good  by  all  means,  taught 
them,  healed  them,  kept  company  with  them,  took  food  in 
their  houses,  exposing  Himself  in  so  doing  to  suspicion, 
misunderstanding,  and  calumnious  mispresentation  ;  regard- 
less of  the  evil  that  might  be  thought  or  said  about  Himself, 
if  only  He  might  by  such  brotherliness  comfort,  gladden, 
and  win  to  goodness  the  depressed,  the  unfrieuded,  and  the 
erring. 


JI8U&  849 

Once  more  Jesus  stood  in  conspicuous  contrast  to  the 
Pharisee  by  His  modesty.  This  trait  came  out  in  the 
question,  Why  callest  thou  me  good  ?  expressive,  not, 
indeed,  of  the  sense  of  moral  defect,  but  certainly  of 
reverence  for  the  august  moral  IdeaL  What  a  shock  of 
surprise  the  question  must  have  given  the  young  man 
familiar  with  the  ways  of  the  scribes !  It  was  not  their 
habit  to  decline  titles  of  honour.  They  loved  to  be  called 
"  Eabbi."  Vanity,  ostentation,  thirst  for  flattery  were  con- 
spicuous vices  of  their  religious  character.  Jesus  testified 
of  them  that  they  did  all  their  works  to  be  seen  of  men, 
that  they  loved  uppermost  rooms  at  feasts,  the  chief  seats 
in  the  synagogues,  and  greetings  in  the  markets.  His 
own  way  how  different  I  He  did  not  pray  at  the  street 
corner  but  in  the  mountain  solitude  when  men  were  asleep. 
He  withdrew  into  the  wilderness  from  popular  applause. 
He  said  to  His  intimates.  Tell  no  man  that  I  am  Christ. 
The  Pharisees  let  their  light  shine  so  that  it  glorified 
themselves.  Jesus  let  His  light  shine  so  that,  while 
glorifying  God  and  benefiting  men,  it  brought  to  Himself 
reproach,  blasphemy,  crucifixion.  Of  a  life  having  such 
issues  a  higher  principle  than  vanity  was  the  spring :  the 
stern  sense  of  duty,  lowly  self-suppressing  love  to  men. 

Here  was  a  type  of  goodness  worth  admiring  and  imita- 
ting, set  forth,  not  in  theory,  but  in  a  living  practice.  Now 
we  know  what  to  say  in  answer  to  the  question.  Why 
callest  thou  Jesus  Good  ?  We  call  Jesus  Good  because 
He  abhorred  counterfeit  sanctity,  served  His  Father  with 
filial  liberty  and  devotion,  loved  men  even  unto  death,  and 
shunned  ostentation.  We  have  good,  solid,  historical 
grounds  for  so  thinking  of  Him.  The  evangelists  had  no 
inducement  for  exhibiting  Him  in  this  light  except  that 
the  fact  was  so.  On  the  contrary,  the  temptation  of  the 
Apostolic  Church,  as  time  went  on,  was  to  tone  down  the 
controversial  aspect  of  Christ's  character,  and  to  exhibit 
His  goodness  apart  from  the  shadows  which  bring  its  dis- 
tinotiye  qualities  into  bright  relieC     The  error  and  mis- 


350  AFOLOOEnOS. 

fortune  of  later  ages  has  been  to  lose  clear  perceptions  of 
the  real  Jesus  to  the  extent  of  well-nigh  becoming  insen- 
sible to  the  difference  between  His  goodness  and  the 
counterfeit  presentation.  For  this  loss  of  true  insight  into 
Christ's  human  character  higher  views  of  His  Person  cannot 
compensate.  On  the  contrary,  a  faded  humanity  means 
a  divinity  evacuated  of  its  contents.  It  is  of  no  avail, 
I  must  repeat,  to  call  an  unknown  man,  still  less  a 
misconceived  man,  God.  God  is  a  Spirit,  not  merely 
ontologically  but  ethically,  and  of  what  quality  His  spirit 
is  the  man  Jesus  declares.  God  is  love,  and  what  divine 
love  means  the  ministry  of  Jesus  in  life  and  death  showa 
Grod  is  good  in  the  specific  sense  of  being  gracious,  generous, 
philanthropic,  and  the  historic  life  of  Jesus  interprets  for 
ufl  the  philanthropy  of  God.  All  we  really  know  of  God  in 
spirit  and  in  very  truth  we  know  through  Jesus ;  but  only 
on  condition  that  we  truly  know  Jesus  Himself  as  revealed 
to  us  in  the  pages  of  the  evangelic  history.  Knowledge  of 
the  historical  Jesus  is  the  foundation  at  once  of  a  sound 
Christian  theology  and  of  a  thoroughly  healthy  Christian  life.* 
Holding  this  view,  I  cannot  regard  with  favour  the 
tendency  visibly  at  work  in  the  present  time  to  make 
Christianity  as  far  as  possible  independent  of  history.  In 
view  of  prevailing  agnosticism,  this  tendency  is  very 
natural.  When  men  are  loudly  and  confidently  saying :  It 
is  impossible  to  know  what  the  facts  are  as  to  the  life  of 
Jesus,  we  cannot  be  sure  of  much  more  than  that  He 
lived  in  Judaea  at  a  certain  time,  and  taught  unpopular 
views  on  morals  and  religion,  and  in  consequence  sufifered 
a  violent  death ;  it  is  natural  that  believers  should  reply : 
Our  faith  is  independent  of  the  uncertainties  of  the  evan- 
gelic story;  we  can  get  our  Christianity  by  a  short  and 
easy  method,  without  troubling  ourselves  about  what  hap- 

^  On  the  need  to  go  back  to  the  consideration  of  the  historical  Jesua  as  an 
antidote  to  the  tendency  of  dogmatic  decisions  concerning  the  Person  of 
Christ  to  obsonre  His  true  image,  vide  Gore's  BampUm  Lecture*  <m  the 
fncamation  of  the  Son  (^Ood,  p.  144. 


JSBUS.  361 

pened  nineteen  centuries  ago,  from  the  spirit  of  Christ 
living  in  the  Church  or  from  our  own  spiritual  experience. 
Accordingly,  the  apologetic  of  the  hour  runs  largely  along 
these  lines.  Now  that  the  Church  can  do  nothing  for  a 
man  in  quest  of  faith,  or  that  the  "  evidence  of  Christian 
experieace  "  is  without  validity,  I  by  no  means  assert.  A 
species  of  Christianity  might  have  been  permanently  pro- 
pagated without  any  written  record  of  the  life  of  the 
Founder  by  the  influence  He  exerted  on  His  first  disciples, 
and  through  them  on  their  contemporaries,  and  through  the 
first  generation  of  Christians  on  the  next,  and  so  on  till  the 
world's  end.  Through  word  and  act  He  moulds  the  men 
who  are  with  Him,  and  makes  them  the  heroes  they  after- 
wards appear,  and  so  a  certain  definite  type  of  religious 
thought  and  character  is  established.  On  this  hypothesis 
Jesus  would  be  simply  the  unknown  cause  of  certain  known 
effects,  or  a  cause  knowable  only  through  the  effects. 
Among  these  effects  might  fall  to  be  reckoned  the  literary 
picture  drawn  by  early  Christians  of  Him  whose  name  they 
bore :  the  acts  ascribed  to  Him  being  such  as  they  deemed 
congruous  to  His  character,  the  words  put  into  His  mouth 
not  actually  uttered  by  Him,  but  expressive  of  thoughts 
which  His  spiritual  influence  enabled  His  disciples  to  con- 
ceive ;  the  Gospels,  in  short,  a  product  not  of  memory,  but 
of  an  inspired  imagination.  In  proof  that  a  religion  might 
be  successfully  propagated  under  such  conditions  reference 
might  be  made  to  Buddhism,  which  has  flourished  for  two 
thousand  years,  though  concerning  the  history  of  the 
founder  little  or  nothing  can  be  definitely  ascertained.  A 
Christianity  so  originating  and  so  perpetuated  would  be  a 
purely  natural  product,  entirely  independent  of  all  questions 
as  to  the  present  eidstence  of  Jesus  or  of  the  power  of  a 
"  Living  Christ "  to  exert  supernatural  influence  on  the 
minds  of  men. 

Such  a  Christianity  is  better  than  nothing,  but  it  surely 
leaves  much  to  be  desired  1  For  one  thing  it  makes  each 
successive  generation  very  dependent  on  that  which  goes 


352  APOLOOBTIOBl 

before.  We  leoeive  oar  Christianity  throngb  flie  spirit  of 
Christ  living  in  the  community  into  which  we  are  bom. 
But  what  if  the  spirit  of  Christ  so-called  be  in  great 
measure  a  spirit  of  anti-Christ  ?  Is  there  no  means  by 
which  we  can  protect  ourselves  from  its  baleful  influence, 
no  standard  Christianity  by  which  the  actual  can  be  tested, 
no  ideal  by  which  the  real  can  be  criticised  ?  To  this  it 
may  be  replied :  Yes,  there  is  the  evangelic  presentation 
which  by  comparison  is  relatively  perfect,  the  picture 
of  the  Master  by  those  who  were  nearest  Him,  which, 
whether  historic  truth  or  poetic  fiction,  may  be  assumed  to 
be  in  large  measure  true  to  His  spirit.  It  is  fortunate  that 
there  is  such  a  picture  to  refer  to — on  naturalistic  principles 
it  might  have  been  otherwise  ;  and  it  may  bring  us  nearer 
to  the  genuine  image  of  Jesus  than  contemporary  presenta- 
tions. But  it  is  not  a  matter  of  indifference  whether  it 
be  truth  or  fiction.  Its  value,  both  as  an  instrument  of 
criticism  and  as  an  aid  to  godly  living,  depends  on  the 
measure  of  its  historicity.  I  want  to  be  sure  that  the 
type  of  goodness  portrayed  in  the  Gospels  was  embodied 
in  an  actual  life.  If  the  Jesus  of  the  Gospels  really  lived 
as  there  described,  I  have  a  right  to  condemn  nonconformity 
to  His  image  in  others,  and  am  under  obligation  to  aim  at 
conformity  thereto  in  my  own  conduct.  What  He  was  we 
ought  to  be,  what  He  was  we  can  approximately  be.  But 
if  the  Jesus  of  the  Gospels  be  a  devout  imagination  then 
the  right  of  reform  and  the  obligation  to  conform  cease. 
The  fair  Son  of  man  belongs  to  the  serene  region  of  poetry ; 
real  life  at  the  best  must  move  on  a  much  lower  leveL 

Believers  in  the  supernatural,  in  a  Christ  risen,  ascended, 
and  still  living,  may  assert  their  independence  of  history  in 
another  way.  They  may  make  their  own  religious  experi- 
ence in  conversion  and  sanctification  their  apologetic  start- 
ing-point, and  reason  thus :  Whatever  difficulties  may  be 
raised  about  the  earthly  history  of  Christ  we  cannot  doubt 
that  He  now  lives  in  heaven,  for  we  have  experienced  His 
spiritual  power  in  our  own  hearts.     We  know  therefrom 


JESUS.  353 

not  oqIj  that  He  lives,  bat  what  manner  of  being  He  is. 
The  spiritual  effects  reveal  the  character  of  the  Cause ; 
through  these  we  can  form  to  ourselves  a  mental  image  of 
the  exalted  Lord.  And  by  means  of  that  image  we  can 
even  verify  the  general  truth  of  the  picture  of  Jesus 
presented  in  His  earthly  history.  The  two  likenesses 
correspond.  There  is  in  both  the  same  holy  abhorrence  of 
sin,  the  same  compassion  for  sinners,  the  same  willingness 
and  ability  to  save.  This  is  in  brief  the  form  of  an  argu- 
ment which  admits  of  being  indefinitely  expanded  and 
enforced  with  rhetorical  power.  And  far  be  it  from  me  to 
say  that  it  is  entirely  illusory.  But  I  do  certainly  think 
that  it  wiU  not  bear  the  strain  which  some  seem  inclined 
to  put  upon  it.*  In  the  first  place,  does  not  the  experience 
which  forms  the  foundation  of  the  argument  presuppose  the 
faith  which  it  is  used  to  prove  ?  The  heavenly  existence 
of  Christ,  and  as  much  of  His  earthly  life  as  we  need  to 
know,  are  deduced  from  an  experience  which  is  regarded  as 
a  purely  objective  and  independent  datum.  Is  it  really 
an  independent  datum  ?  Does  it  not  depend  for  aU  its 
peculiar  characteristics  on  preconceived  ideas  both  of  the 
heavenly  and  of  the  earthly  Christ  ?  Does  not  the  ordinary 
convert  take  for  granted  the  truth  of  what  is  said  about 
Christ  in  gospels  and  epistles,  and  in  the  traditional  teach- 
ing of  the  Church  ?  Does  not  the  quality  of  religious 
experience  in  general  vary  with  the  antecedent  state  of 
mind  of  its  subject  ?  Men  living  in  heathen  countries  may 
have  their  religious  experiences,  but  they  cannot  have 
specifically  Christian  experience  while  they  remain  ignorant 
of  Christ.  Philosophers  in  Christian  countries  who  have 
accepted  the  conclusions  of  negative  criticism  regarding 
the  Gospels,  can  have  a  religious  experience  which  they 
may  think  themselves  entitled  to  caU  Christian,  but  it  is 
one  of  a  very  different  complexion  from  that  of  a  convert 
at  a  revival  meeting.  It  is  such  as  results  from  the  power 
of  a  few  ethical  ideas  like  that  of  dying  unto  self  in  order 
1  Vide,  «.g.,  Tkt  LMmg  Chria  and  Hit  F<mr  Ch»peU,  by  Dr.  Daltk 

Z 


354  APOLOOEnca 

to  truly  liva'  Theirs  is  indeed  a  Christianity  independent 
of  history,  but  it  is  not  one  likely  to  be  accepted  as  ortho- 
dox or  legitimate  by  the  patrons  of  the  argument  now  under 
consideration. 

That  argument  seems  open  to  a  second  criticism — ^vii. 
that  it  puts  the  heavenly  and  the  earthly  Christ  in  the 
wrong  order.  Its  first  inference  from  experience  is  the 
present  Christ  living  in  heaven,  its  second  the  past  Christ 
who  once  lived  on  earth.  The  Christ  of  history  is  honestly 
believed  in,  but  faith  in  Him  is  not  deemed  necessary  to 
the  experience.  Experience  does  not  arise  out  of  but  rather 
gives  us  that  faith ;  its  sole  and  all-sufficient  source  is  the 
heavenly  Christ,  and  His  spiritual  powers.  This  is  a  very 
precarious  ground  to  stand  on.  The  earthly  Christ  is  the 
source  of  the  heavenly  Christ's  power.  The  earthly  Christ 
must  first  be  in  the  mind  as  the  lever  on  which  the  heavenly 
Christ  works.  The  heavenly  Christ,  or  the  Spirit  who  is 
His  alter  ego,  takes  of  the  things  relating  to  the  earthly 
Christ  and  uses  them  as  means  of  moral  renewal ;  such  is 
the  account  of  the  matter  given  by  Jesus  Himself  as  re- 
ported in  the  Fourth  Gospel.  Without  these  materials  to 
work  with  the  heavenly  Christ  would  be  impotent,  or  left 
in  possession  of  only  such  power  as  He  is  able  to  exercise 
on  such  as  never  heard  of  His  name.  If  the  Grospels  were 
to  be  lost,  or  all  faith  in  their  truth  to  perish,  Christianity 
as  a  distinctive  type  of  religion  would  disappear  from  the 
world.*     It  is  essentially  a  historical  religion. 

In  attaching  such  importance  to  intimate  knowledge  of 
the  historic  Jesus  one  may  seem  to  lay  himself  open  to  the 
charge  of  clinging  to  a  rudimentary  religious  intuition,  with 
its  inevitable  limitations,  instead  of  going  on  to  perfection. 
The  path  leading  thereto,  we  are  told,  is  this  :  First  comes 
the  intuition  of  the  man  Jesus.     Then  comes  in  due  course 

1  F«ie  Works  of  T.  H.  Green,  vol.  iii. 

*  Steami  sayt :  "  There  ia  no  reason  to  believe  that  Chriatianity  would  for 
uiy  long  time  continue  to  eziat  as  an  active  power  in  the  world  were  the 
Bible  to  be  blotted  out  of  existence." — The  Evidence  ^  Ohrietian  Esq^trimee^ 
p.  814. 


JBSUB.  356 

of  development  the  dogma  of  the  God-man,  which  invests 
the  historic  Jesus  with  a  divine  nature,  but  in  doing  so 
evacuates  His  humanity  of  its  contents  and  reduces  it  to  a 
ghostly  abstraction.  Finally  arrives  the  perfect  stage  of 
the  philosophic  idea  underlying  the  dogma :  God  manifesting 
Himself  in  the  world  of  nature  and  humanity.*  Whether 
this  be  a  true  account  of  the  course  Christianity  had  to  run, 
or  not,  need  not  be  here  discussed.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that 
if  the  choice  lay  between  these  three  alternatives  I  should 
prefer  the  intuition  to  either  the  dogma  or  the  idea.  If 
the  dogma  did  indeed  imply  the  humanity  of  Jesus  stripped 
of  all  reality,  it  would  cheat  us  out  of  the  very  boon  sup- 
posed to  be  conferred  by  the  Incarnation — God  revealing 
Himself  through  a  human  life.  If  the  idea  be  the  true 
reality  which  makes  us  independent  of  empirical  reality,  w» 
gain,  indeed,  an  imposing  universal  truth,  but  at  the  cost  of 
the  inspiration  which  comes  from  firm  faith  in  a  perfect  life 
lived  on  this  earth  by  a  man  in  whom  the  Divine  Spirit 
was  immanent  in  a  unique  measure.  The  need  of  the  hour 
is  not  philosophy,  but  restored  intuition.  Let  us  see  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  clearly,  and,  if  need  be,  let  the  dogma  be 
reconstructed  so  that  the  vision  shall  remain  in  all  its 
vividness.* 

^  Vide  Easay  on  "  Christiaii  Dogma"  in  Green's  Worlu,  toI.  iiL 
'  The  question  discussed  in  the  closing  paragraphs  of  this  chapter  has 
occnpied  the  attention  of  German  theologians.  Among  those  who  have  con- 
tributed to  its  discussion  in  magazines  and  otherwise  are  Nbsgen,  Haupt, 
and  Koenig.  Nosgen  goes  to  an  extreme  in  insisting  on  faith  in  the  histori- 
city of  the  Gospels  as  essentiaL  Haupt  takes  up  a  position  similar  to  that  of 
Dr.  Dale.  The  view  of  Nosgen  is  substantially  that  stated  in  the  foregoing 
pages.  The  most  important  work  bearing  on  the  question  that  I  know  is 
Herrmann's  Verkehr  dta  Ohriattn  mit  Oott,  1892.  It  is  antipietistic  in  spirit, 
and  in  sympathy  with  Luther  and  with  Ritschl's  attitude  in  his  Oeschichte 
dea  Pietismus,  and  insists  on  the  supreme  importance  of  knowing  the  historio 
Christ.  The  risen  Christ  he  regards,  not  as  the  sourc«  of  faith,  bat  rathM 
M  til*  product  of  faith — •  Qkutbent-gedaniem. 


356  APOLOGETIOa. 

CHAPTER  n. 

JESUS  AS  THE  CHRIST. 

Literature. — Stanley  Leathes,  The  Religion  of  the  Chrxd 
(Bampton  Lectures  for  1874) ;  Matthew  Arnold,  Literature 
and  Dogma  (chap,  vii.);  Baur,  Geschichte  der  Christlichen 
Kirche,  ler  Band ;  Drummond,  The  Jevnsh  Messiah,  1877 ; 
Stanton,  The  Jewish  and  the  Christian,  Messiah,  1886 ; 
Baldensperger,  Das  Selhsthewusstsein  Jesu  im  Lichte  der 
Messianischen  Hoffnungen  seiner  Zeit,  1888 ;  Bornemann, 
Unterricht  im  Christenthum,  1891 ;  Martineau,  Seat  of 
Authority  in  Religion,  1890. 

Jesus,  we  have  seen,  was  very  welcome  for  His  own  sake, 
apart  from  His  relation  to  the  previous  history  of  the 
world,  or  of  Israel,  and  might  on  His  own  merits  have  for 
faith  the  highest  religious  value,  as  the  revealer  of  God  in 
the  fulness  of  His  grace  and  truth.  And  we  can  conceive 
of  faith  as  expressing  its  sense  of  the  absolute  religious  worth 
of  Jesus  in  categories  of  thought  current  in  the  present 
time,  rather  than  in  those  current  in  the  long  bygone  ages 
and  among  other  peoples,  such  as  the  Christ  or  the  Logos. 
Faith  has  a  perfect  right  to  do  so.  Had  the  New  Testament 
been  written  in  this  century  and  in  Europe,  the  religious 
significance  of  Jesus  might  have  been  found  set  forth  therein 
in  terms  not  known  in  the  first  century,  and  in  Palestine ; 
and  some  of  the  terms  used  in  the  actual  New  Testament 
to  express  what  Jesus  is  to  faith,  such  as  the  Logos,  might 
have  been  missing,  though  the  truth  thereby  suggested — 
that  Jesus  has  the  highest  value  as  the  full  self-communi- 
cation of  the  living  God,  not  merely  for  Israel,  but  for  the 
Gentile  world,  for  the  whole  human  race — would  not  have 
failed  to  find  recognition.  It  is  the  inalienable  privilege 
of  a  living  faith,  and  its  instinctive  impulse,  to  declare  the 
treasure  it  finds  in  Jesus  in  its  own  way,  and  in  words  and 
ideas  thrilling  with  its  own  fresh  life.  In  poetry  and  in 
preaching  it  uses  this  liberty.     In  theology  the  privilege 


JESUS   AS   THE   CHRIST.  S57 

has  been  little  taken  advantage  of,  the  tendency  being 
to  fall  back  on  Scripture  terms  and  categories  as  alone 
authorised,  and  as  alone  competent  to  express  a  true 
adequate  doctrine  concerning  the  person  of  Jesus.*  Of 
these  inspired  terms  the  most  valuable,  and  therefore  most 
frequently  to  be  used  for  the  purposes  of  theology,  are 
those  which  are  most  universal  in  their  character,  and  most 
independent  of  local  and  temporary  associations.  Foremost 
among  the  titles  of  Jesus  possessing  this  character  are 
"  Son  of  God  "  and  "  Son  of  man."  The  synthesis  of  these 
two  titles  expresses  the  eternal  truth  of  Christianity  as  the 
universal  absolute  religion. 

While  all  this  is  true,  it  is  not  unimportant  for  theology, 
and  even  for  religious  faith,  to  affirm  of  Jesus  that  He  was 
the  Christ.  For  we  must  not  forget  that  Christianity  is 
not  merely  a  universal  and  absolute  religion,  but  likewise 
a  historical  religion.  In  connection  with  this  aspect  of 
the  Christian  faith,  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ  is  a  very 
essential  proposition.  It  implies  in  general  that  the  Chris- 
tian religion  had  its  root  in,  and  was  the  consummation  of, 
the  religion  of  Israel  We  expect  of  the  absolute  religion 
that  it  shall  be  found  on  inquiry  to  be  the  crown  and  ripe 
fruit  of  the  religious  development  of  the  world.  This  is 
the  demand  at  once  of  faith  and  of  philosophy.  Neither 
can  rest  till  it  has  been  able  to  see  in  Jesus  the  Desire  of 
all  nations.  That  He  was  this  so  far  as  Israel  was  con- 
cerned is  declared  when  we  affirm  that  He  was  the  Christ. 
The  affirmation,  if  well  founded,  has  apologetic  value  both 
for  the  religion  of  Israel  and  for  the  Christian  religion. 
With  reference  to  the  former  it  implies  that  the  religious 
history  of  Israel  embodied  a  real  self- revelation  of  God 
through  a  special  gracious  providence.  With  reference  to 
the  latter  it  implies  that  in  Jesus  that  revelation  culmin- 
ated, and  that  providence  reached  its  goal.  Each  suppoits 
the  claims  of  the  other,  and  the  two  together  constitute  a 
harmonious,  complete,  historic  movement. 

'  Vide  OB  tUi  Bomemann,  Unterricht  Wn  Chriatenthum,  pp.  65,  66. 


368  APOLOOEnos. 

That   Jesus  is  the   Christ   is    therefore    an   important 

affirmation,  if  true.  But  on  what  grounds  does  the  affir- 
mation rest  ?  Did  Jesus  claim  to  be  the  Christ,  and  was 
His  claim  valid  ?  Let  us  look  at  the  latter  question  first. 
Now  it  is  important  to  have  a  clear  understanding  of  what 
is  implied  in  a  valid  claim,  in  other  words  what  was  the 
necessary  and  sufficient  outfit  for  one  who  was  to  be  a 
Christ.  The  question  throws  us  back  on  Hebrew  prophecy. 
For  we  may  disregard  in  this  connection  the  apocalyptic 
writings.  Their  bearing  on  the  Messianic  idea  is  of  quite 
subordinate  moment.  It  relates  to  the  language  rather  than 
to  the  substance  of  the  idea,  so  far  as  Jesus  is  concerned. 
These  writings  doubtless  had  a  place  in  the  religious 
development  of  IsraeL  But  revelation  is  hardly  respon- 
sible for  them;  for  the  most  part  they  sink  below  the 
level  of  inspiration,  and  belong  in  spirit  to  the  night  of 
legalism.  The  question  of  vital  importance  is,  "What  are 
the  leading  momenta  in  the  Messianic  idea  as  presented 
in  the  oracles  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  ?  The  question  has 
already  been  answered  by  anticipation.  In  our  study  of 
the  characteristics  of  Old  Testament  prophecy,  and  especi- 
ally of  its  optimism,  we  found  that  the  hopes  of  Israel 
centred  around  three  things :  a  right  Eoyal  Man,  a  king- 
dom of  the  good  with  God's  law  written  on  their  heart, 
and  a  suffering  servant  of  God  making  Himself  King  of 
that  kingdom  by  His  spiritual  insight  and  self-sacrifice. 
And  at  the  close  of  that  study  it  was  affirmed  that  in 
Jesus  these  three  ideals  meet :  that  He  is  the  Royal 
Man,  the  bringer  in  of  the  kingdom  of  grace,  and  the  man 
of  sorrow  who  conquers  human  hearts  by  suffering  love.* 
That  these  ideals  are  the  salient  points  of  prophecy  will 
probably  be  admitted  by  all  competent  students.  That  in 
Jesus  they  met  will  be  not  less  frankly  acknowledged  by 
all  who  see  in  Him  one  very  welcome  for  His  own  sake. 
For  suiih  Jesus  is  the  one  true  proper  Royal  Man  in  all 
human   history.     His  claim  to  be  the  wisest  teacher  and 

»  Vide  Book  II.  chap,  vi  p.  861. 


JESUS   AS   THE   CHRIST.  369 

the  man  of  most  tragic  experience  they  readily  own.  His 
influence  through  wisdom  and  suffering  their  admira- 
tion and  love  confess.  What  more  is  needed  to  justify 
the  assertion  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ  ?  To  this  ques- 
tion one  such  as  Mr.  Arnold  might  reply — it  is  indeed 
the  gist  of  what  he  has  written  on  the  subject  in 
Literature  and  Dogma : — "  Is  not  the  correspondence 
between  the  prophetic  ideals  and  the  history  of  Jesus 
only  an  accidental  coincidence ;  very  remarkable  cer- 
tainly, yet  possessing  no  religious  significance  such  as 
that  assertion  implies  ?  When  you  say  that  Jesus  is 
Christ,  you  mean  that  it  was  God's  preannounced  purpose 
that  such  a  personage  should  come,  and  that  in  Jesus  that 
purpose  found  its  fulfilment.  Might  not  the  prophetic 
ideals  be  poetic  dreams,  and  the  correspondence  between 
them  and  the  life  of  Jesus,  so  far  as  real,  only  a  curious 
historical  phenomenon  ?  "  Such  scepticism  is  possible  only 
to  those  who  have  no  faith  in  a  Living  God  who  works 
out  purposes  in  history.  It  is  an  attitude  towards  history 
analogous  to  that  of  the  materialist  towards  the  physical 
constitution  of  the  universe.  As  the  materialist  regards 
the  world  as  the  product  of  a  fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms, 
so  the  man  who,  on  the  grounds  indicated,  doubts  the 
Messianic  claims  of  Jesus,  regards  history  as  a  succession 
of  events  in  which  no  trace  of  a  Providence  can  be 
discovered.  We  must  leave  such  a  man  to  the  enjoyment 
of  his  doubts.  It  is  not  to  persons  in  such  a  state  of  mind 
we  appeal  when,  having  regard  to  the  correspondence 
between  prophetic  ideals  and  gospel  realities,  we  say,  Jesus 
was  the  Christ. 

If  Jesus  was  the  Christ  He  might  know  Himself  to  be 
sach,  and  make  public  acknowledgment  of  the  fact.  Is 
there  any  good  ground  for  believing  that  He  did  indeed 
advance  Messianic  pretensions  ?  With  the  Gospels  in  our 
hands  it  seems  difficult  to  resist  the  conclusion  that  He 
did.  Many  sayings  are  recorded  as  uttered  by  Him  which 
clearly   Imply  a    Messianic   consciousnesa.       Accordingly, 


360  ▲POLOGBTIGS. 

that  Jesus  claimed  to  be,  or  allowed  Himself  to  be  called, 
the  Messiah,  is  admitted  by  some  of  the  most  negative  and 
sceptical  critics  of  the  evangelic  history,  as,  e.g.  by  Dr. 
Ferdinand  Baur,  the  famous  founder  of  the  Tubingen 
school  of  tendency  -  criticism.  The  concession,  however, 
has  little  value,  when  those  who  make  it  conceive  of  Jesus 
as  adopting  or  accepting  the  title  simply  from  reasons  of 
policy.  Such  was  Baur's  idea.  His  view  of  Christ's 
position  is  this:  He  was,  and  knew  Himself  to  be,  the 
founder  of  a  new  religion,  ethical  in  spirit,  and  therefore 
universal  in  destination.  To  such  a  religion  anything 
peculiar  to  the  religion  of  Israel,  and  particularism  of 
every  description,  was  entirely  foreign;  its  concern  was 
with  man  and  the  essentially  human.  Jesus  understood 
this  quite  weU,  and  in  His  heart  had  entirely  shaken  off 
the  narrow  trammels  of  Judaism.  But  He  could  not 
entirely  break  away  from  these  in  His  public  action. 
In  especial  He  could  not  disregard  the  national  hope  of 
Israel,  the  Messianic  idea.  He  must  bow  to  it  as  a 
great  fact;  as  the  inaugurator  of  the  universal  religion 
He  must  even  Himself  accept  the  title  of  Messiah,  and 
play  the  corresponding  role  to  the  satisfaction  of  His 
countrymen,  or,  at  least,  of  the  most  godly  among  them. 
To  conquer  the  world.  He  must  first  get  a  foothold  in 
Judaea,  and  that  was  possible  only  for  one  who  respected 
and  seemed  able  to  fulfil  the  Messianic  hope.  This  was 
the  tribute  which  Jesus,  however  reluctantly,  had  to  pay 
to  the  spirit  of  His  time  and  people.* 

It  is  so  far  satisfactory  that  the  author  of  the  Ttibingen 
theory  frankly  acknowledges  that  Jesus,  from  whatever 
motives,  did  give  Himself  out  as  the  Messiah.  Yet  even 
on  this  point,  it  must  be  confessed,  his  opinion  is  of  less 
weight  than  it  may  seem  entitled  to  in  virtue  of  his  great 
learning.  For  the  truth  is,  it  was  Baur's  interest  to 
arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  Jesus  claimed  to  be  the 
Christ  Only  so  could  he  secure  the  necessary  conditions 
Vide  Oeeekiehte  der  Chritfiichen  KWche,  Band  I.  pp.  86^  87. 


JESUS   AS   THE   CHRIST.  861 

for  the  dialectic  process  from  which  resulted,  according  to 
his  theory,  the  old  Catholic  Church  and  its  conception  of 
Christianity.  In  Jesus,  the  initiator  of  the  movement, 
must  meet  two  things  not  absolutely  irreconcilable,  but 
certain  to  appear  so  to  His  followers.  But  lo  I  here  are 
two  things  admirably  fitted  to  serve  the  purpose  of 
Gegensdtze  or  antagonistic  principles:  the  universal  spirit 
of  the  new  religion,  and  the  particularistic  form  of  the 
Jewish  Messianic  idea.  They  suit  the  purpose  so  well 
that  it  may  be  assumed  without  further  trouble  that 
they  did  both  meet  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  And 
granting  that  they  did  both  find  a  place  in  the  doctrine 
of  the  Master,  it  is  not  difficult  to  conjecture  what 
will  foUow.  Some  will  place  the  emphasis  of  their  faith 
on  the  one  aspect  of  the  doctrine,  some  on  the  other ; 
whence  wiU  come  first  war,  then  efforts  at  reconciliation, 
then  ultimate  harmonious  and  stable  peace.  Such  in 
a  nutshell  is  the  celebrated  Tubingen  theory  of  the 
origin  of  the  Christianity  of  the  old  Catholic  Church, 
as  it  made  its  appearance  in  the  latter  half  of  the  second 
century. 

If  the  alternatives  were,  Jesus  calling  Himself  Messiah 
olely  on  grounds  of  policy,  or  totally  ignoring  the  Messianic 
idea  and  hope,  one  could  have  no  hesitation  in  preferring 
the  latter.  If  we  cannot  have  a  Jesus  who  is  the  ripe 
fruit  of  Old  Testament  religion,  let  us  at  least  have  a  Jesus 
who  is  sincere,  unworldly,  guileless — an  absolutely  true, 
pure-hearted,  godly  man ;  not  a  time-serving  opportunist. 
We  may  not  be  able  on  these  terms  to  hold  fast  the  old 
faith  in  a  revelation  of  God  to  Israel,  but  we  shall  at  all 
events  be  able  to  think  better  and  more  hopefully  of 
human  nature.  But  there  is  another  alternative  besides 
the  two  indicated.  Jesus  might  have  a  purified,  trans- 
formed Messianic  idea,  and  might  with  perfectly  sincere 
conviction  regard  Himself  as  the  realiser  of  that  idea.  It 
belongs  to  the  theory  that  Jesus  called  Himself  Messiah 
firom  motives  of  policy,  that  He  should   accept  the  Mes- 


362  APOLOGETICS. 

sianic  idea  pretty  much  as  He  found  it.  From  all  we 
know  of  Him,  this  was  intrinsically  unlikely.  As  He 
appears  in  the  Gospels  Jesus  occupies  an  attitude  of  radical 
dissent  from  the  whole  thought  and  spirit  of  His  age.  If 
we  are  to  understand  Him  thoroughly,  we  cannot  attach 
too  much  importance  to  this  fact.  His  character  and 
historical  position,  as  has  been  already  pointed  out  in  an 
earlier  part  of  this  work,*  are  explained  by  two  sets  of 
conditions,  one  positive  and  the  other  negative.  The  posi- 
tive conditions  are :  an  elect  people,  a  prophetic  Messianic 
forecast,  and  a  sacred  literature.  To  these  three  answer, 
as  a  negative  group,  election  misconceived  and  abused,  a 
degenerate  corrupt  Messianic  hope,  and  Rabbinism,  i.e. 
enslavement  to  the  letter  of  a  Holy  Book  misinterpreted 
and  idolised.  These  three  counterfeits  went  together,  and 
were  naturally  cause  and  effect  of  each  other.  To  be  out 
of  sympathy  with  any  one  of  them  was  to  be  equally  out 
of  sympathy  with  the  others.  That  Jesus  had  no  sym- 
pathy with  Jewish  exclusiveness,  in  its  claim  to  a  monopoly 
of  divine  favour,  is  certain.  That  He  had  a  passionate 
aversion  to  Eabbinism  and  all  its  ways  is,  if  possible,  still 
more  certain.  That  the  popular  notion  of  Messiah  had  no 
attraction  for  Him  may  be  confidently  inferred  from  these 
two  facts,  not  to  speak  of  the  concurrent  evidence  to  this 
effect  supplied  by  the  gospel  records. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  solidarity  of  Jesus  with  the  first 
group  of  historical  conditions  was  as  pronounced  as  His 
antipathy  to  their  contemporary  caricatures.  He  was, 
like  Paul,  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews.  In  his  account  of 
the  contents  of  Christianity  as  taught  by  Christ,  Baur 
represents  Him  as  indebted  to  the  Gentiles  not  less  than 
to  the  Jews :  to  Greek  philosophy,  as  influenced  by 
Socrates,  for  His  doctrine  of  the  supreme  value  of  man 
as  a  moral  subject ;  to  the  world-wide  Empire  of  Eome, 
for  the  universalist  spirit  of  His  teaching.  But  it  is  really 
not  necessary  to  go  outside  the  Old  Testament  and  the 

^  Vide  Book  I.  p.  58. 


JBBUS   AB  THE  CHRIST.  863 

Jewish  people  to  understand  and  explain  Jesus  as  far  aa 
that  is  possible.  He  believed  with  His  whole  heart  in  the 
divine  calling  of  Israel ;  He  loved  the  Scriptures ;  He 
especially  delighted  in  the  Psalms  and  the  prophetic 
oracles,  in  the  passion  for  righteousness  to  which  they 
give  eloquent  expression,  in  the  inspiring  view  which  they 
present  of  the  character  of  God,  and  in  the  glowing  picture? 
they  paint  of  the  good  time  coming.  If  He  had  any 
favourites  among  the  prophets,  Isaiah,  and,  still  more,  the 
great  unknown  prophet  whom  critics  call  Deutero-Isaiah, 
had  a  foremost  place  amongst  them;  Jeremiah,  too, — 
witness  the  allusion  at  the  supper  table  to  his  oracle  of 
the  new  covenant.  The  Gospels  are  full  of  echoes  from 
the  second  half  of  the  book  which  goes  by  Isaiah's  name. 
With  reference  to  the  second  Isaiah  it  has  been  beautifully 
remarked: — "As  we  enter  the  gospel  history  from  the 
Old  Testament,  we  feel  at  once  that  Isaiah  is  in  the  air. 
In  the  fair  opening  of  the  new  year  of  the  Lord,  the 
harbinger  notes  of  the  book  awaken  about  us  on  all  sides, 
like  the  voices  of  birds  come  back  with  the  spring."  *  It 
is  open  to  any  one  to  suggest  that  these  references  are  due 
to  the  evangelists  rather  than  to  Jesus.  But  even  if  this 
were  admitted,  it  would  be  a  fair  inference  that  their  par- 
tiality for  Isaiah  reflects  a  trait  in  the  religious  character 
of  their  Master. 

From  His  favourite  prophets  Jesus  doubtless  drew  His 
Messianic  idea.  It  is  from  them  mainly  that  we  derive 
what  we  have  found  to  be  the  cardinal  elements  of  the 
Messianic  hope  —  the  Royal  Man,  the  kingdom  of  the 
good,  and  the  suffering  servant  of  Jehovah.  With  these 
the  mind  of  Jesus  could  be  in  perfect  sympathy :  their 
unworldliness,  their  lofty  spirituality,  would  commend 
themselves  to  His  pure,  devout  soul.  For  the  advent  of 
a  man  who,  by  his  wisdom  and  patience,  could  found  such 
a  kingdom  of  the  good  with  the  law  of  God  written  on 

*  O.  A.  Smith,  The  Book  qf  Isaiah,  voL  ii.  p.  282.     Vide  Matt  ilL  8-17, 
iv.  14-17,  xii.  17-21  ;  Lake  iv.  18,  19. 


364  APOLOGETIOS. 

their  heart,  in  accordance  with  Jeremiah's  oracle  of  tha 
new  covenant,  He  could  sincerely  and  fervently  pray. 
Nothing  could  be  better  for  Israel  and  for  the  world  than 
that  such  a  man  should  coma 

But  could  He  imagine  that  He  Himself  was  that  man  ? 
There  certainly  never  has  been  a  man  since  the  beginning 
of  the  world  who  more  completely  met  the  requirements. 
Suppose  for  a  moment  He  was  the  very  man,  could  He 
regard  Himself  as  such  ?  No,  it  has  been  replied,  in 
effect,  because  such  a  Messianic  self-consciousness  is  in- 
compatible with  the  moral  worth  of  One  capable  of  being 
a  Messiah.  A  self-conscious  Messiah  is,  ipso  facto,  no 
Messiah;  therefore  all  the  words  ascribed  to  Jesus  which 
imply  a  Messianic  consciousness  must  be  regarded  as  an 
expression  of  the  faith  of  the  Apostolic  Church,  and  not  as 
genuine  sayings  of  the  Master.* 

With  the  ethical  postulate  of  this  argument — that  no 
utterances  must  be  ascribed  to  Jesus  incompatible  with 
His  meek  and  lowly  spirit — we  must  all  entirely  agree. 
The  problem  of  the  reconciliation  of  Christ's  Messianic 
consciousness  with  His  humility  is,  I  have  for  some  time 
back  perceived,*  of  greater  importance  than  has  been 
generally  recognised,  and  Dr.  Martineau  deserves  thanks 
for  projecting  it  upon  public  attention  with  an  emphasis 
which  will  insure  that  it  shall  not  hereafter  be  overlooked. 
His  view  is  that  the  problem  is  insoluble.  In  this  view 
most  certainly  believers  in  Christ  will  not  concur;  never- 
theless the  argument  advanced  in  its  support  will  not  be 
in  vain  if  it  compel  believing  men  to  see  that  there  is  a 
problem.  We  have  been  too  much  accustomed  to  talk 
about  Christ's  Messianic  claims,  without  being  sufficiently 
sensitive  lest  we  should  make  Him  appear  to  be  animated 
by  ambitious  passions  or  by  vain  self-importance.  We 
must    be    careful   so  to  state    His    attitude   towards  His 

^  Vide  Martmeaa,  8eat  of  Authority  in  Religion,  pp.  677-686. 
«  Vide  The  Kingdcym  of  God,  pp.  158-190;  aI«o  The  MiracuUnu  Elemetm 
fo  ikt  OoBpeU,  pp.  256-258. 


JESUS   AS   THE   CHRIST.  865 

Messianic  vocation  that  these  unholy  elements  shall  be 
eliminated.  This  is  possible  by  looking  at  the  Messiahship 
on  the  side  of  duty  rather  than  on  the  side  of  dignity,  and 
by  giving  prominence  to  the  suffering  aspect  of  Messiah's 
career.  It  was  in  this  way  Jesus  Himself  contemplated 
His  Messiahship.  He  thought  of  Himself  as  called  to  an 
arduous  office,  involving  toil,  humiliation,  and  sorrow.  And 
therefore  His  attitude  was  not  that  of  one  making  a  claim, 
but  rather  that  of  loyal  submission  to  the  behest  of  divine 
Providence.  "  His  coming  forth  as  Messiah  was  not 
usurpation,  but  obedience ;  not  free  choice,  but  inevitable 
divine  necessity."  ^  The  indignities  of  His  earthly  experi- 
ence and  the  foreseen  tragedy  at  the  end  of  His  career 
efiectually  guaranteed  the  purity  of  His  motives.  It  is  not 
the  way  of  ambition  to  clutch  at  a  position  involving  such 
experiences.  No  man  taketh  the  honour  of  high  priest- 
hood to  himself  when  the  priest  has  to  be  also  the  victim. 
Neither  is  vanity  or  self-seeking  likely  to  aspire  to  a 
Messiahship  of  which  the  outstanding  feature  is  suffering. 

Many  of  the  utterances  ascribed  to  Jesus,  which  involve 
a  Messianic  consciousness,  plainly  breathe  the  spirit  of 
lowliness  rather  than  that  of  arrogance  or  vain -glory. 
This  holds  true  of  the  title  Son  of  man,  the  favourite  self- 
designation  of  Jesus.  It  expressed  the  Messianic  con- 
sciousness of  Jesus  in  three  distinct  directions  by  three 
distinct  groups  of  texts.  "It  announced  a  Messiah 
appointed  to  suffer,  richly  endowed  with  human  sympathy, 
and  destined  to  pass  through  suffering  to  glory.  In  all 
three  respects  it  pointed  at  a  Messianic  ideal  contrary  to 
popular  notions.  For  that  very  reason  Jesus  loved  the 
name,  as  expressing  truth  valid  for  Himself,  as  fitted  to 
foster  just  conceptions  in  receptive  minds,  and  as  steering 
clear  of  current  misapprehensions."  *     Even  in  those  cases 

^  Baldensp«Tger,  Dot  Selbtibeumsttaein  Jeau  im  lAehU  dtr  JUesrianitchen 
Hoffnungen  seiner  Ztit,  p.  191. 

*  Vide  TU  Kingdom  of  Ood,  pp.  176,  177,  aad  pp.  172-17S  for  Um 
reUtire  texts. 


3ft6  AFOLOGEnoa. 

in  which  the  title  has  an  apocalyptic  reference,  the  lowly 

mind  shines  through.  The  Son  of  man  of  the  judgment 
programme  is  one  who  can  say :  I  have  been  an  hungered, 
thirsty,  a  stranger,  naked,  sick,  in  prison. 

But  there  are  certain  words  ascribed  to  Jesus  in  the 
Gospels  which  it  is  deemed  impossible  He  could  have 
uttered.  Such  are  those  in  which  He  claims  to  be  greater 
than  Jonah,  Solomon,  and  the  Temple.  These  sayings  do 
certainly  express  a  sense  of  personal  dignity,  and  we  have 
only  a  choice  between  regarding  them  as  on  that  account 
unauthentic,  and  discovering  a  way  of  harmonising  a  sense 
of  dignity  with  the  spirit  of  lowliness.  Now  there  are  two 
lines  of  thought  which  are  available  here.  In  the  first 
place,  it  will  be  found  that  wherever  Jesus  appears  in  the 
Gospels  in  the  act  of  self-assertion,  it  is  always  as  against 
a  spirit  of  scornful  unbelief  manifested  in  His  environ- 
ment The  most  notable  instance  is  that  in  which  He 
claims  to  be  the  indispensable  medium  of  the  knowledge  of 
the  Father.  When,  according  to  the  representation  of  the 
evangelist,  did  He  utter  those  words  beginning,  No  man 
knoweth  the  Son  but  the  Father  ?  It  was  when  He  was 
confronted  with  the  unbelief  of  the  "wise  and  prudent.** 
Did  it  not  become  even  the  meek  and  lowly  One  to  draw 
Himself  up  to  the  full  height  of  His  dignity  in  such  cir- 
cumstances, even  as  it  became  Paul  to  assert  His  importance 
as  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles  in  opposition  to  Judaistic 
narrowness  and  intolerance  ?  If  Judaists  said  to  Paul, 
You  are  no  apostle,  that  they  might  destroy  His  influence 
as  the  preacher  of  a  universal  Christianity,  it  became  him, 
it  was  his  positive  duty,  to  say  with  emphasis :  I  am  an 
apostle,  not  behind  the  chiefest  apostles.  To  say  this  in 
such  circumstances  was  not  vain  boasting,  but  proper 
jealousy  for  a  great  interest  committed  to  his  hands.  Even 
80  in  the  case  of  Jesus.  If  scribes  and  Pharisees,  proud  of 
their  learning  and  sanctity,  said :  What  can  this  Nazarene 
provincial  have  to  say  about  God,  or  His  kingdom,  or  His 
righteousness  ?  Jesus   owed  it  to  the  truth  that  was   in 


JBSUS   AS  THE  CH&IST.  367 

Him  to  claim  power  to  reveal  the  Father,  and  to  proclaim 
His  confident  belief  that,  however  despicable  His  present 
following  might  be,  the  future  belonged  to  Him  and  the 
cause  He  represented. 

The  words  in  which  Jesus  asserted  for  Himself  a  great- 
ness superior  to  that  of  Solomon,  or  Jonah,  or  the  Temple 
are  quite  compatible  with  a  lowly  mind.  They  were  all 
spoken  in  the  same  circumstances  as  those  in  which  the 
claim  to  exclusive  knowledge  of  the  Father  was  advanced. 
And  they  were  spoken  in  the  same  sense  as  that  in  which 
Jesus  said  of  John  the  Baptist  that  even  the  least  in  the 
kingdom  of  God  was  greater  than  he.  In  personal  terms 
Jesus  expressed  His  sense  of  the  greatness  of  the  new  era, 
His  consciousness  of  b«longing  to  a  new  world  of  valuea 
Solomon  represented  material  wealth  and  splendour,  Jonah 
represented  religious  nationalism,  the  Temple  represented 
a  worship  of  outward  sensuous  ritual;  Jesus  represented 
the  kingdom  within,  the  religion  of  humanity,  the  worship 
of  the  Spirit ;  so  did  the  meanest  of  His  disciples.  There- 
fore not  only  He,  but  the  least  in  the  kingdom  of  God, 
was  greater  than  the  men  and  things  of  greatest  magnitude 
belonging  to  the  old  era.  Thus  understood,  the  sayings  in 
question,  which  to  a  prejudiced  critic  wear  an  aspect  of 
conceit,  do  but  express,  in  a  grand  prophetic  way,  spiritual 
insight.  The  speaker  was  so  remote  from  egotism,  that 
He  could  afford  to  be  indifferent  to  the  superficial  appear- 
ance of  it  in  the  form  of  expression,  just  as  He  was  so 
remote  from  vice  that  He  could  afford  to  be  the  companion 
of  the  vicious,  though  in  neither  case  without  paying  the 
penalty  in  an  evil,  misjudging  world. 

Thus  far  of  one  line  of  thought,  which  seems  to  supply 
real  help  towards  the  reconciliation  of  Christ's  sense  of 
Messianic  dignity  with  His  personal  lowliness.  The  other 
remains  to  be  briefly  indicated.  The  problem  of  the 
reconciliation  of  dignity  with  humility  is  a  general  one 
in  ethical  psychology.  If  Jesus  could  not  compatibly  with 
His  humility  be  conscious  of  His  Messiahship,  then  it  is 


368  APOLOOBTIOS. 

impossible  to  combine  humility  with  the  consciousness  oi 
being  a  father,  a  chief  magistrate,  a  judge,  a  minister  of 
state,  a  king.  The  Messianic  dignity  is  unique;  still  it 
belongs  to  a  class.  The  grace  of  humility  may  be  pecu- 
liarly hard  to  practise  for  the  one  man  in  history  who  can 
be  the  Christ ;  still  the  problem,  if  exceptionally  delicate, 
is  the  same  in  principle  for  him  as  for  all  occupants  of 
places  of  distinction.  If  an  ordinary  king  can  be  humble, 
so  can  the  Messianic  King.  If  the  leader  of  a  great 
religious  reform,  like  Luther  or  Knox,  can  be  lowly,  so 
can  He  who  said,  "  Take  my  yoke  upon  you."  And  where 
is  the  difficulty  in  any  case  ?  Is  the  problem  not  con- 
stantly receiving  solutions  ?  Is  it  not  among  the  great 
ones,  great  in  position,  responsibility,  endowment,  and 
influence,  that  true  lowliness  is  found  ?  Nay,  is  not  God, 
the  greatest,  also  the  lowliest  ?  "I  dwell  in  the  high 
and  holy  place,  with  him  also  that  is  of  a  contrite  and 
humble  spirit."  Is  this  not  the  very  truth  involved  in 
the  incarnation — God  humbling  Himself  to  share  and  bear 
the  sins  and  miseries  of  His  own  children  ? 

Jesus  was  "  He  that  should  come."  He  was  what  waa 
wanted — a  man  richly  endowed  with  prophetic  intuition, 
in  spirit  wholly  opposed  to  Eabbinism,  with  the  purity  of 
heart  needful  to  see  God,  and  able  to  speak  the  last  and 
highest  word  about  God.  He  came  when  He  was  wanted, 
when  Judaism  had  reached  the  lowest  point  of  degeneracy, 
and  the  night  of  legalism  was  at  its  darkest.  He  under- 
stood the  situation,  and  felt  that  it  was  His  vocation  to 
meet  the  pressing  needs  of  the  time,  and  did  meet  them 
with  perfect  fidelity  and  wisdom.  By  His  public  career 
He  fulfilled  God's  purpose  in  the  election  of  Israel,  which 
took  place  for  the  sake  of  the  true  religion,  not  for  the 
sake  of  its  temporary  vehicle.  For  the  revelation  of  God 
and  the  moral  renewal  of  the  world  one  man  turned  out  to 
be  of  incomparably  more  service  than  the  whole  nation  of 
Israel,  or  the  southern  kingdom  of  Judah,  or  the  post- 
exilian  remnant     That  was  obvious  to  the  first  disciples 


JB3U8  AS   FOUNBKR  OP   THE    KINGDOM   OP  GOD.      369 

of  Jesus,  as  it  is  to  us.  Therefore  they  called  Him  Christ 
Thereby  they  expressed  the  essential  fact  truly.  In  apply- 
ing to  their  Master  that  epithet,  the  apostles  did  not  start 
a  false  theory,  or  put  upon  Him  "  the  first  deforming  mask, 
the  first  robe  of  hopeless  disguise,  under  which  the  real 
personality  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  disappeared  from  sight."  * 
If,  after  they  had  believed  in  Him  as  the  Christ,  they 
discovered  minute  correspondences  between  facts  in  His 
history  and  prophetic  texts,  and  delighted  to  point  these 
out,  they  did,  to  say  the  least,  what  was  very  natural  and 
innocent.  If  such  correspondences  were  not  fitted  to  pro- 
duce faith,  they  at  least  gave  gratification  to  a  faith  already 
existing,  and  in  the  main  well  grounded.  The  assertion 
that  the  Messianic  interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament  in 
the  New  Testament  "has  degraded  the  sublimest  religions 
literature  of  the  ancient  world  into  a  book  of  magic  and  a 
tissue  of  riddles "  *  wiU  be  endorsed  only  by  those  who 
regard  the  Messianic  hope  as  a  fond  delusion  and  romantic 
dream. 


CHAPTER  m 

JSST78  IB  FOUHDKB  OF  THE  KDrGDOM  OF  GOD. 

LiTERATTJRK. — Seeley,  Ecee  Homo ;  Strauss,  Das  Ltben  Jesu^ 
1835,  Das  Lehen  Jesu  fur  das  Deutsche  Volk,  1864  ;  Baur, 
Geschichte  der  ChristlicTien  Kirche  ;  Keim,  GeschicMe  Jesu  von 
Nazara  (Band  11.  pp.  125-204  on  the  Miracles) ;  Bernhard 
Weiss,  Das  Lehen  Jesu,  1884;  Ha  vet,  Le  Christianisme  et 
ses  Origins,  voL  iv. ;  Candlish,  The  Kingdom  of  God  Biblically 
and  Historically  considered  (Cunningham  Lectures,  1884); 
Eow,  The  Supernatural  in  the  New  Testament,  and  Christian 
Evidences  viewed  in  relcUion  to  Modem  Thought  (Bampton 
Lectures  for  1877) ;  Fairbairn,  Studies  in  the  Life  of  Christ ; 
Brace,  The  MiracuUms  Element  in  the  Gospels,  and  The  King' 

1  Martinean,  fiecU  t^  Authority  m  Beligiimt  p.  S89. 
*  Ibid,  p.  829. 

2a 


370  APOLOOBTIOa. 

dom  of  God ;  Martinean,  The  Seat  of  Authority  in  Belgian 
(Book  V.  chap.  L  "The  Veil  taken  away.") 

The  burden  of  Christ's  preaching,  according  to  the  Synop- 
tical Gospels,  was  the  Kingdom  of  God.  That  they  represent 
this  as  His  great  theme  is  one  of  many  marks  of  their 
historic  fidelity.  For  it  was  to  be  expected  that  the  Christ, 
when  He  came,  would  make  the  kingdom  the  great  subject 
of  His  discourse.  The  establishment  of  a  holy  state  in 
which  ideally  perfect  relations  between  God  and  man 
should  be  realised  had  been  the  aim  of  Jehovah  and  the 
hope  of  His  people  from  the  time  of  Israel's  election.  The 
attempts  at  realisation  had  been  failures  ;  yet,  still  the  hope 
lived  on.  At  length  Jesus  came,  and  if  He  were  indeed 
the  Christ,  what  could  He  say  but  that  now  at  last  the 
kingdom  was  at  hand  ? 

Being  the  Christ  Jesus  had  more  to  do  than  to  announce 
the  advent  of  the  kingdonu  He  was  indeed.  Like  John  the 
Baptist,  a  prophet,  but  He  was  more.  He  was  the  King, 
and  in  that  capacity  He  had  to  create  the  divine  common- 
wealth whose  approach  He,  as  a  prophet,  proclaimed. 
His  creative  activity  had  to  assume  two  forms.  He  had 
not  only  to  bring  into  existence  the  thing,  but  He  had  to 
originate  the  true  idea  of  the  thing.  For  the  kingdom 
was  as  grossly  misconceived  by  the  common  mind  as  was 
the  Messiahship,  so  that  when  Jesus,  at  the  commencement 
of  His  ministry,  virtually  intimated  that  through  Him  the 
kingdom  was  about  to  come.  He  thereby  imposed  on  Him- 
self the  double  task  of  making  known  the  nature  of  the 
kingdom,  and  of  giving  to  the  kingdom  truly  conceived  it* 
place  in  history. 

Two  questions  thus  arise :  What  was  Christ's  idea  of  the 
kingdom ;  and  what  means  did  He  employ  to  bring  it  into 
existence  ! 

In  the  first  chapter  of  this  work  it  has  been  stated 
that  two  of  the  most  outstanding  characteristics  of  the 
kingdom,  as  Jesua  conceived  it,  were  spirituality  and  wU- 


JESUS   AS   FOUNDEB   OP  THE   KINGDOM    OP   GOD.      371 

versality}  The  two  attributes  imply  each  other.  That  which 
is  ethical  or  spiritual  is  universal,  and  nothing  in  religion 
is  universal  but  that  which  belongs  to  the  spirit  of  man. 
Yet,  while  most  students  of  the  Gospels  would  be  willing 
to  concede  the  former  of  the  two  ascriptions,  there  has  been 
much  dispute  concerning  the  latter.  Some  contend  that 
the  promise  Jesus  came  to  announce  was  purely  national, 
and  that  everything  in  the  Gospels  pointing  in  the  direction 
of  a  universal  religion  is  part  of  the  veil  that  must  be 
taken  away  in  order  to  see  the  true  Jesus.*  There  is  the 
strangest  confusion  of  parties  on  the  question,  among 
those  who  deny  the  universalistic  character  of  Christ's 
teaching  being  found  so  comparatively  orthodox  a  theo- 
logian as  Weiss,  while  Baur,  as  is  well  known,  most 
strenuously  maintained  the  affirmative.  The  opinion  of 
Weiss,  however,  is  no  part  of  orthodoxy,  it  is  only  an 
instance  of  orthodoxy  misled  by  an  indiscriminate  bias 
against  Tiibingen  heterodoxy.  For  while  the  theory  of 
Baur  in  regard  to  the  origin  of  Christianity  is  in  many 
respects  radically  false,  and  based  upon  a  naturalistic 
philosophy,  his  view  on  the  particular  question  now  under 
consideration  is  well  founded.  That  Jesus  should  be  the 
conscious  teacher  of  a  universal  religion  was  to  be  expected, 
not  on  the  ground  suggested  by  Baur,  that  the  spirit  of 
universalism  was  in  the  air,  the  result  of  the  world-wide 
dominion  of  Eome,  but  simply  because  such  a  religion  was 
the  natural  outcome  of  the  religious  development  of  Israel. 
The  steady  drift  of  Israel's  history  and  of  Hebrew  prophecy, 
as  has  been  made  apparent  in  the  foregoing  book,  was 
towards  universalism.  To  say  that  Jesus  came  announcing 
the  approach  of  a  purely  national  theocratic  kingdom,  is 
to  say  that  He  did  not  understand  the  purpose  of  Israel's 
election,  the  prophetic  doctrine  of  God,  and  the  oracle  of 
the  new  covenant.  It  is  to  suppose  Him  blind  to  the 
lessons  taught  by  past  failures  to  establish  either  a  righteous 

1  Vidt  p.  8. 

1 8^  Martmeaa,  Stat  qf  Authority  m  jReligion,  ppi.  b86-6St» 


372  APOLOGETICS. 

nation  or  a  holy  Church.     The  Jewish  nation  had   been 

wrecked,  and  the  Jewish  Church  had  ended  in  Rabbinism  ; 
and  now  what  remained  but  to  try  a  new  experiment,  that  of 
forming  a  community  based  not  on  race  or  ritual,  but  on 
spiritual  receptivity  to  the  love  of  God  ? 

Universal  elements  do  certainly  enter  into  Christ's 
teaching  as  reported  even  in  the  Synoptical  Gospels;  such 
as  the  sayings  concerning  the  coming  into  the  kingdom  of 
strangers  from  all  quarters  of  the  earth,^  and  the  preaching 
of  the  gospel  in  the  whole  world,'  and  the  parables  of  the 
vinedressers,  the  great  feast,  and  the  prodigal  son,'  and  the 
programme  of  judgment*  The  universalistic  drift  of 
these  texts  and  others  of  kindred  character  is  for  the 
most  part  not  denied ;  what  is  called  in  question  is  their 
authenticity.  The  suggestion  is  that  they  express  the  views 
of  Christians  of  a  later  time  when  Gentile  Christianity  had 
become  a  great  fact,  not  the  mind  of  Christ.  Nothing  that 
an  apologist  can  say  can  prevent  such  a  suggestion  being 
made.  But  he  can  with  reason  affirm  that  it  is  gratuitous 
and  uncalled  for ;  that  there  is  no  good  ground  for  doubt- 
ing the  authenticity  of  universalistic  gospel  texts ;  that 
there  is  no  presumption  against  Jesus  being  universalistic 
in  His  spirit  and  tendency,  if  not  in  His  outward  activities ; 
that  the  presumption  is  indeed  all  the  other  way  in  refer- 
ence to  one  who  had  due  insight  into  the  meaning  of  His 
country's  history,  and  into  His  own  position  in  the  process 
of  its  religious  development.  That  the  Gospels  represent 
Jesus  as  uttering  words  implying  the  near  advent  of  a 
religion  of  humanity  is  as  strong  a  point  in  favour  of  their 
historicity  as  that  they  represent  the  kingdom  of  God  in 
general  as  the  main  theme  of  His  preaching.  In  both  alike 
Jesus  was  true  to  His  antecedents,  and  to  the  needs,  if  not 
to  the  spirit,  of  His  time. 

Before  passing  from  this  topic,  let  it  simply  be  remarked 

>  Matt.  TiiL  11.  >  Matt,  zxri  13  ;  Mark  xiv .  9. 

•  Matt  zxi.  38-41 ;  Lnke  ziv.  16-24  ;  Lake  zr.  11-32. 

*  M«tt.  XX9.  81-46. 


JESUS   AS   FOUNDER   OF   THE    KINGDOM   OF   ODD.      373 

in  a  sentence  that  this  new  idea  of  the  kingdom,  as  spiritual 
and  universal,  not  only  found  occasional  expression  in 
Christ's  words,  but  was  immanent  in  His  conduct.  The 
interest  He  took  in  the  common  people  was  full  of  signfi- 
cance  as  the  sign  of  a  new  departure.  It  proclaimed  the 
importance  of  man,  and  it  struck  a  death-blow  at  privilege. 
It  was  universalism  in  germ  within  the  limits  of  the  chosen 
race. 

The  attributes  of  spirituality  and  universality  differen- 
tiated the  kingdom  as  Jesus  conceived  it  from  the  kingdom 
of  popular  expectation  ;  which,  while  theocratic,  was  ia 
other  respects  like  any  ordinary  kingdom,  outward  and 
national.  To  complete  its  definition,  it  is  necessary  to 
make  use  of  yet  another  contrast.  The  kingdom,  as  Christ 
presented  it,  was  not  a  kingdom  of  law,  but  a  kingdom  of 
grace.  It  was  not  a  demand  but  a  gift.  It  was  God  as  a 
Father,  Christ's  chosen  name  for  the  Divine  Being,  coming 
down  to  men  to  dwell  among  them  as  His  children,  merci- 
fully forgiving  their  offences,  and  putting  His  Spirit  within 
them  that  they  might  live  worthily  of  their  position  as 
sons.  Such  was  the  kingdom  implied  in  Jeremiah's  oracle 
of  the  new  covenant,  in  contrast  to  that  based  on  the  old 
Sinaitic  covenant  with  its  law  written  on  tables  of  stone. 
The  contrast  between  the  two  kingdoms  was  indeed  not 
absolute,  but  only  relative,  for  as  has  been  pointed  out  in 
another  place,  God's  relation  to  men  was  never  merely 
legal ;  certainly  was  not  so  under  the  Decalogue,  whose 
preface  points  to  a  work  of  redemption  as  the  basis  of 
Jehovah's  claim  to  obedience.*  Still  the  contrast,  though 
only  relative,  was  sufficiently  real  to  justify  the  broad 
statement  in  the  Fourth  Gospel :  the  law  was  given  by 
Moses,  grace  came  by  Jesus  Christ'  Many  things  in  the 
Gospels  indicate  that  grace  was  the  keynote  of  Christ's 
doctrine  of  the  kingdom ;  e.g.,  the  joyous  spirit  that  ani- 
mated His  disciples  in  contrast  to  the  gloom  that  brooded 
over  the  company  gathered  around  the  Baptist,  the  kind  of 
^  Ficfe  p.  248.  «  f«*kn  L  17. 


374  AP0L0GETIC5S. 

people  who  were  chiefly  invited  to  enter  the  kingdom,  not 
the  righteous,  but  "  sinners,"  and  the  eagerness  with  which 
many  of  the  class  responded  to  the  calL^ 

Thus  did  Jesus  create  a  new  idea  of  the  kingdom  of 
God — new  not  in  the  sense  that  it  had  no  roots  in  the  Old 
Testament,  but  in  the  sense  of  novel  emphasis  given  to 
germs  of  truth  latent  in  Hebrew  prophecy.  We  have  now 
to  consider  what  means  He  employed  to  bring  the  kingdom 
so  conceived  into  existence. 

Christ's  means  and  methods  were  congruous  to  the  nature 
of  the  kingdom  He  came  to  found.  It  was  a  kingdom  of 
grace,  and  His  main  instrument  was  love.  His  outfit  as 
Messianic  King  consisted  chiefly,  and  before  all  things,  in 
an  unbounded  sympathy  with  the  sinful  and  miserable,  an 
"enthusiasm  of  humanity."  The  text  He  is  reported  to 
have  preached  on  in  the  synagogue  of  Nazareth  gives  the 
key  to  His  whole  ministry.  He  was  under  an  irresistible 
impulse  of  the  spirit  of  love  to  preach  the  gospel  of  the 
kingdom  to  the  poor,  to  heal  the  broken-hearted,  to  bring 
deliverance  to  the  captives,  and  recovery  of  sight  to  the 
blind.'  It  was  probably  through  this  great  tide  of  love 
rolling  through  His  heart  that  He  became  conscious  of  His 
Messianic  vocation ;  it  was  certainly  by  its  mighty  power 
that  He  was  carried  triumphantly  through  all  the  arduous 
tasks  and  trials  of  His  public  career.  This  love  made 
Him  the  "  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners  " ;  it  also  made 
Him  the  marvellous  healer  of  diseases.  The  former  aspect 
of  His  ministry  drew  upon  Him  the  reproaches  of  con- 
temporaries ;  the  latter  aspect  is  the  stumbling-block  of 
modern  unbelief. 

The  miraculous  element  in  the  Gospels  is  a  large  subject 
with  many  sides,  demanding  for  its  adequate  treatment  a 
volume  rather  than  a  few  paragraphs.  It  raises  the  ques- 
tion of  the  possibility  of  miracle,  with  reference  to  which 
both  philosophy  and   science  are   through  many  of  theii 

*  Vide  The  Kingdom  <(f  Ocd  chap.  L 

•  Lake  !▼.  18,  19. 


JBBU8  A8   FOUNDER   OF   THE   KINGDOM   OF  OOD.      375 

representatives  in  conflict  with  faith.  This  question  cannot 
be  gooB  into  here.  A  few  observations,  however,  may  be 
helpful  on  two  more  special  questions,  viz.  in  what  relation 
does  the  miraculous  element  stand  to  the  primitive  tradition 
jf  our  Lord's  ministry ;  and  in  what  relation  does  the  same 
element  stand  to  that  ministry  itself  as  the  outcome  of 
Christ's  character  and  Messianic  vocation  ? 

As  to  the  former  of  these  two  questions,  there  seems  to 
be  good  reason  to  believe  that  miraculous  or  marvellous 
acts  of  healing  had  a  place  in  the  original  apostolic  tradi- 
tion. The  men  who  had  been  with  Jesus  had  stirring 
stories  to  tell  of  cures  wrought  on  the  bodies  and  minds 
of  the  sick,  on  persons  suffering  from  fever,  leprosy,  palsy, 
demoniacal  possession,  blindness.  Nine  narratives  of  cures 
of  such  diseases  are  found  in  the  triple  tradition  which 
forms  the  common  basis  of  the  Synoptical  Gospels.  The 
primitive  gospel,  whether  it  was  the  Zogia  of  Matthew  or 
the  Gospel  of  Mark,*  the  report  of  Peter's  preaching, 
appears  to  have  been  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  a  miracle 
gospel.^  This  is,  indeed,  now  very  generally  admitted,  the 
only  question  seriously  debated  being  whether  the  cures 
were  in  the  strict  sense  miraculous,  the  naturalistic  sug- 
gestion being  that  they  were  wrought  by  "moral  therapeutics," 
or  by  hypnotism.  But  it  is  hard  to  conceive  of  leprosy  or 
of  aggravated  madness  like  that  of  the  demoniac  of  Gadara 
yielding  to  anything  short  of  miraculous  power.  This  is 
virtually  acknowledged  by  those  who  see  in  the  story  of 
the  leper  not  a  case  of  cure,  but  simply  a  declaration  that 
the  sufferer  was  already  cured  and  clean,  and  in  the  story 
of  the  Gadarene  demoniac  a  "  witty,  in  the  literal  sense, 
impossible  history."* 

^  On  this  topic,  vide  chap.  rlU.  of  tUs  book. 

'  Vide  on  this  topic,  my  Miraculous  Element  in  the  Oospels,  chap.  UL 
•  So  Keim  in  Jesu  von  Nazara.  As  Keim  of  all  naturalistic  theologian* 
goes  furthest  in  recognising  the  general  historicity  of  the  gospel  record,  it  may 
be  well  to  indicate  here  how  he  disposes  of  the  miraculous  element.  He 
accepts  all  narratives  which  do  not  necessarily  involve  miracle  in  the  strict 
aenae.     The  rest  he  throws  overboard  as  supemamerary  (iibenMhiig).    Tc 


376  APOLOQETIOa. 

It  was  formerly  maintained  by  Strauss  and  others  thai 
the  gospel  miracles  were  the  product  of  faith  in  Jesus  aa 
the  Christ  They  were  myths  born  of  Old  Testament 
precedents  and  prophecies  setting  forth  the  marvellous 
works  Messiah  must  have  wrought  after  Jesus  had  been 
accepted  as  the  Messiah.  There  is  good  reason,  however, 
to  believe  that  these  miracles  were  not  the  creations  of 
faith,  but  rather  an  authentic  element  of  the  original  gospel 
offered  to  faith.  They  were  in  part  the  ground  of  the 
belief  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ  among  the  first  generation 
of  disciples.  How  far  can  they  render  such  service  now  ? 
This  brings  us  to  the  second  point  we  proposed  to  consider. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  miracles  cannot  be  offered  as 
evidences  of  Christianity  now  with  the  confidence  with 
which  they  were  employed  for  this  purpose  by  the  apologists 
of  a  past  age.  Men  do  not  now  believe  in  Christ  because 
of  His  miracles  :  they  rather  believe  in  the  miracles  because 
they  have  first  believed  in  Christ.  For  such  believers  Christ 
is  His  own  witness,  who  accredits  everything  connected 
with  Him :  Scripture,  prophecy,  miracle.  Those  who  are 
in  this  happy  position  need  no  help  from  apologists.  But 
there  are  some  who  have  not  got  the  length  of  accepting 
miracles  for  Christ's  sake,  not  because  they  are  speculative 
unbelievers  in  the  possibility  of  miracle,^  but  because  they 
fail  to  see  any  congruity  between  miracles  and  Christ's 
personal  character  or  His  Messianic  vocation.  Now  it  is 
difficult  to  establish  any  such  congruity  when  miracles  are 
viewed  in  the  abstract  merely  as  products  of  supernatural 
power.  Then  they  sink  into  mere  external  signs  attached 
to  Christ's  proper  work  for  evidential  purposes,  a  mode  of 

the  sapemumenuy  eliaa  he  relegates  (1)  duplicates,  «ach  M  the  leoond 
feeding  ;  (2)  parables  transformed  into  events,  t.g.  the  cursing  of  the  fig 
tree  and  the  miracnlous  draught  of  fishes ;  (3)  picture  histories,  e.g.  the 
Oadareue  demoniao  ;  (4)  imitation  miracles  after  Old  Testament  patterns  ; 
(5)  the  nature  miracles  (feeding,  stilling  of  the  storm,  change  of  water  into 
wine,  etc.)- 

*  For  some  remarks  on  the  general  subject  of  the  miraenlons,  vid«  doce  tA 
chapter  r.  of  this  book. 


JKSUS  A8   F0X7NDER  Of   THE   KINGDOM   OF  OOD.      377 

contemplating  the  subject  which  has  ceased  to  have  much 
value  for  many  thoughtful  minds.*  It  is  otherwise,  however, 
when  the  miracles  of  Christ  are  regarded,  not  primarily  as 
acts  of  preternatural  power,  but  as  acts  of  unparalleled  love. 
(The  reference  here,  of  course,  is  to  the  miracles  of  healing  ; 
the  nature  miracles  must  be  left  on  one  side  to  be  dealt 
with  as  a  special  problem.')  Then  there  is  no  difficulty  in 
perceiving  how  congruous  the  gospel  miracles  are  both  to 
the  innermost  spirit  of  Jesus  and  to  His  Messianic  work. 
The  constant  desire  of  Jesus  was  to  do  good  to  the  utter- 
most extent  of  His  power,  and  that  was  also  His  supreme 
duty  as  the  Christ  having  for  His  vocation  to  establish  the 
kingdom  of  grace.  He  healed  men's  bodies,  as  well  as  their 
souls,  because  He  was  abla  Whence  the  power  came, 
whether  it  was  natural  or  supernatural,  is  a  question  of 
some  scientific  and  theological  interest,  but  not  of  vital 
religious  importance.  The  thing  to  be  chiefly  noted  is  that, 
the  acts  of  healing  being  witness,  Jesus  was  a  man  who 
always  did  good  to  the  full  measure  of  His  ability  and 
opportunity.  It  is  the  divinity  of  His  love,  not  the  super- 
naturalness  of  His  power,  that  commends  Him  to  our  faith, 
as  a  man,  and  as  the  Christ  The  healing  miracles  played 
their  part  in  the  revelation  of  that  love.  They  were  not 
the  whole  of  the  revelation,  or  even  the  principal  part  of  it 
Preaching  the  gospel  to  the  poor,  and  keeping  company 
with   people   of  evil   repute,  were   even   more    significant 

1  On  the  old  and  the  new  ways  of  regarding  the  functions  of  prophecy  and 
miracle  in  revelation,  vid«  The  Chief  End  of  Revelation,  chaps,  iv.  and  v. 
The  older  apologists  viewed  prophecy  and  miracle  as  evidential  adjuncts  to 
a  doctrinal  revelation,  and  laid  stress  on  their  miracnlonsness  as  pointing  to 
a  snpematiiral  agent.  The  modem  apologist  views  them  as  integral  parts  of 
revelation,  and  lays  stress  on  the  ethical  rather  than  on  the  supernatural 
aspect. 

*  On  this  group,  vide  The  Miraculous  Element  in  the  Ootpels,  chapa.  tL 
and  viii.  The  view  there  contended  for  is  that  the  nature  miracles  are  not, 
any  more  than  the  healing  miracles,  to  be  regarded  as  mere  displays  of 
power,  thaumaturgic  feats,  but  as  serving  a  useful  purpose  in  connection  with 
Christ's  worV  as  the  Herald  and  Founder  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  The 
nature  miracles  assert  the  supreme  claims  of  the  kingdom,  and  the  certainty 
tli*t  ita  interests  will  be  vindicated  at  all  hazards. 


378  APOLOOETICCL 

manifestations  of  the  mling  spirit  of  the  Son  of  man.     But 

all  three  should  be  taken  together  as  belonging  to  the  same 
category,  and  as  integral  parts  of  the  Messianic  ministry. 
That  Jesus  evangelised  the  poor,  associated  with  the  sinful, 
healed  the  sick,  were  each  and  all  signs  that  He  was  the 
One  who  should  come,  the  genuine  Christ  of  a  sin  and 
sorrow-laden  world. 

The  gospel  miracles,  supremely  valuable  as  a  self-revela- 
tion of  the  Worker,  have  also  permanent  didactic  signifi- 
cance as  indicating  that  the  kingdom  of  God  is  most 
comprehensive  in  scope,  and  covers  all  that  relates  to  the 
well-being  of  man.  Christ  certainly  cannot  be  charged 
with  treating  what  we  call  spiritual  interests  as  matters  of 
subordinate  importance.  He  was  no  mere  social  reformer, 
who  thought  all  was  well  when  the  people  had  plenty  of 
food  and  clothing,  and  when  disease  and  care  were  rare 
visitants  of  their  homes.  He  knew  and  taught  that  life 
was  more  than  meat,  or  physical  health  or  wealth.  He 
constantly  felt  and  showed  a  tender  concern  for  the  peace 
and  health  of  human  souls.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
He  was  equally  remote  from  the  one-sidedness  of  an  ultra- 
spiritualism  the  healing  miracles  conclusively  prova  They 
are  a  protest  by  anticipation  against  all  indifiference  to 
temporal  interests  as  of  no  moment  in  comparison  with 
eternal  interesta  They  proclaim  social  salvation,  however 
subordinate  in  value  as  compared  with  soul  salvation,  as 
nevertheless  a  part  of  the  grand  redemptive  plan.  They 
afford  most  satisfactory  evidence  of  the  entire  healthiness 
of  Christ's  sympathies,  the  freedom  of  His  religious  char- 
acter from  all  morbid  elements,  the  sunny  optimism  of  His 
spirit.  What  a  contrast  this  Healer  of  disease  and 
Preacher  of  pardon  to  the  worst,  to  Buddha  with  his 
religion  of  despair  I  How  incredible  that  the  monk  in  his 
cowardly  flight  from  the  world  is  the  true  embodiment 
of  Christ's  ethical  ideal !  How  manifest  that  the  Christian 
as  he  ought  to  be,  the  true  follower  of  Jesus,  is  a  man 
who  fights  bravely   and   incessantly  with   every  form  of 


JBSUS   AS   FOUNDER   OF   THE   KINGDOM   OF  OOD.      379 

evil,  whose  passion  is  to  leave  the  world  better  than  he 
found  it,  and  who  makes  no  scrupulous  distinction  between 
saints  and  sinners,  God's  poor  and  other  poor,  in  the  exer- 
cise of  his  benevolence,  or  between  higher  and  lower 
interests  in  the  measure  of  his  zeal ;  but  is  ever  thankful 
for  opportunities  of  conferring  benefit  on  any  man,  in  any 
way,  and  to  any  extent ! 

As  Creator  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  Jesus  displayed 
not  only  unbounded  benevolence,  but  consummate  wisdom. 
This  attribute  was  an  indispensable  instrument  of  love, 
without  which,  with  the  best  intentions,  it  might  have 
failed  of  its  end  Accordingly,  it  occupies  a  prominent 
place  in  the  prophetic  picture  of  the  Messianic  King  and 
Servant  of  Jehovah,  in  which  He  -appears  as  one  on  whom 
the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  understanding  should  rest,  and  to 
whom  the  isles  should  look  for  instruction.*  The  wisdom 
of  Jesus  showed  itself  conspicuously  in  the  choice  of  men 
who  "  should  be  with  Him,"  and  in  the  whole  training  to. 
which  He  subjected  them.  The  materials  relating  to  this 
subject  may  be  reckoned  among  the  most  certainly  historical 
in  the  gospel  records.  Only  the  most  reckless  scepticism 
could  call  in  question  either  the  choice  or  the  training.* 
A  man  with  such  irresistible  attractions,  and  having  so 
much  to  teach,  could  not  fail  to  gather  around  Him  dis- 
ciples ;  and  that  from  among  those  who  followed  Him 
occasionally,  He  choose  a  limited  number  to  be  His  constant 
companions  is  intrinsically  probable.  That  He  made  the 
number  twelve  simply  meant  that  in  His  mind  the  choice 
had  an  important  connection  with  the  interests  of  the  king- 
dom. And  surely  it  had  in  reality !  That  miscellaneous 
activity  among  the  people  in  evangelism  and  healing,  how- 
ever benevolent  in  spirit,  would  not  by  itself  have  amounted 
to  much  for  the  permanent  fortunes  of  the  kingdom.      For 

1  Isa.  xL  2,  zlii.  1-4. 

*  Havet,  Le  Christianium*  et  aes  Origins,  of  recent  writers  the  most  sweep- 
ing in  his  sceptical  treatment  of  both  Old  and  New  Testaments,  regards  the 
call  of  the  twelve  as  proiiably  apocryphal ;  that  there  was  a  traitor  among 
them  he  thinks  also  nulikely  (vol.  ir.  pp.  88,  39). 


880  APOLOQETICa. 

all  movements  that  are  to  be  of  lasting  character,  and  to 
take  their  place  in  the  general  history  of  the  world,  the 
thorough  instruction  and  discipliue  of  the  few  is  of  greater 
moment  than  the  transient  emotional  excitements  of  the 
many.  Surely  such  an  one  as  Jesus  may  be  credited  with 
fully  understanding  this !  Therefore  one  cannot  hesitate 
to  believe  that  He  chose  men  into  whose  ear  He  might 
speak  the  things  which  it  would  be  their  business  after- 
wards to  speak  from  the  house-top,  as  scribes  well  instructed 
in  the  mysteries  of  the  kingdom.  As  little  should  we 
hesitate  to  find  in  the  Gospels  a  generally  faithful  record 
of  the  sayings  of  the  Master,  as  repeated  and  reported  by 
the  men  who  had  been  with  Him. 

Thus  by  the  varied  activities  of  His  love  and  wisdom, 
Jesus  did  much  for  the  founding  of  the  kingdom  during  the 
years  of  His  life  spent  in  public  ministry.  But,  strange  as 
it  may  seem.  He  did  even  more  for  that  end  by  His  death. 
However  it  is  to  be  explained,  the  fact  is  so.  Had  Jesus 
foreknowledge  of  the  fact  ?  According  to  the  Gospels,  He 
had.  He  is  represented  in  the  evangelic  records  as  making 
mystic  allusions  to  a  tragic  termination  of  His  career  from 
an  early  period,  and  some  months  before  the  close  speaking 
to  His  disciples  in  plain,  terribly  realistic,  terms  of  His 
approaching  death.  There  is  no  good  reason  for  regarding 
these  representations  as  part  of  the  veil  that  must  be  taken 
away  in  order  to  see  the  true  Jesus.  For  the  true  Jesus, 
by  common  consent,  was  a  man  of  exceptional,  even  unique, 
spiritual  insight.  Pure  in  heart.  He  saw  God  and  the  most 
recondite  laws  of  the  moral  world  clearly.  He  penetrated 
to  the  very  heart  of  Old  Testament  prophecy,  and  grasped 
with  unerring  instinct  its  deepest  essential  meaning,  as 
pointing  to  one  God  of  grace  over  all  and  to  a  spiritual 
universal  religion.  Shall  we  doubt  that  His  eye  was 
caught  and  His  heart  set  on  fire  by  that  most  remarkable 
of  Hebrew  oracles  concerning  the  sufifering  Servant  of  God  ? 
Is  it  credible  that  He  failed  to  see,  what  even  Plato  under- 
stood, that  a  perfectly  righteous  man  must  suffer  for  righteous^ 


JESUS   AS   FOUNDER   OF   THE    KINGDOM    OF  OOD.     381 

ness'  sake  in  this  world,  with  His  Hebrew  Bible  in  His 
hand,  full  of  illustrative  instances  and  of  theoretic  question- 
ings as  to  their  rationale  t  On  the  contrary,  that  the 
righteous  man  must  suffer  must  have  been  a  moral  truism 
to  Him.  He  brought  this  conviction  with  Him  from  His 
quiet  home  in  Nazareth  to  His  public  ministry.  And  it 
was  not  long  before  He  began  to  get  new  insight  into 
it  from  personal  experience.  How  could  it  be  otherwise 
with  one  so  antipharisaical,  living  in  a  community  utterly 
given  up  to  pharisaism  ?  How  soon  the  tender,  sym- 
pathetic, loving  spirit  of  Jesus  would  become  aware  of  the 
pitilessness  of  egoistic  sanctity,  and  know  that  there  was 
nothing  too  dreadful  to  be  feared  from  its  conscientious 
malevolence  I 

That  Jesus  understood  from  the  first  that  the  righteous 
must  suffer  is  not  the  thing  to  be  wondered  at.  The 
wonder  lay  in  the  construction  He  put  upon  the  suffering  of 
righteousness.  He  regarded  that,  as  everything  else,  with 
cheerfulness  and  hope ;  not  as  an  accident  or  a  dismal  fate, 
but  as  the  appointment  of  God,  and  the  law  of  the  moral 
world,  ordained  for  beneficent  enda  Therein  lay  His 
originality,  His  new  contribution  to  the  discussion  of  the 
world-old  question,  Why  do  the  righteous  suffer  ?  which  for 
Old  Testament  saints  had  been  an  insoluble  problem. 
Jesus  solved  the  problem  first  for  Himself,  and  then  for  all 
who  bear  His  name.  He  said  :  Not  only  I  must  die  for 
righteousness'  sake,  but  my  death  will  prove  a  signal 
benefit  for  the  kingdom  of  God. 

The  words  reported  in  the  Gospels  as  having  been  spoken 
by  Jesus,  bearing  on  the  significance  of  His  death,  are  few. 
Their  genuineness  has  been  disputed,  but  without  reason. 
It  was  to  be  expected  that  He  would  make  some  statements 
on  the  subject,  and  those  ascribed  to  Him  are  entirely  suit- 
able to  His  situation,  and  to  the  initial  stage  in  the  develop- 
ment of  Christian  thought.  They  leave  much  to  be  desired 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  dogmatic  theologian,  contain- 
ing only  hints  or  suggestions  of  a  doctrine  rather  than  a 


382  APOLOOBTICS. 

folly  formulated  doctrine ;  nevertheless,  they  teach  lessons 
of  real,  rare  valua  Their  general  import  is  that  Jesus  died 
for  righlaousness'  sake  in  accordance  with  a  law  applicable 
to  all  who  are  loyal  to  the  divine  interest  in  the  world ;  * 
that  His  death  should  possess  redemptive  virtue  for  the 
many ;  *  that  He  therefore  died  willingly  in  the  spirit  of 
self-sacrifice ;  *  and  that  out  of  regard  to  His  death,  God 
would  freely  forgive  the  sins  of  all  citizens  of  the  divine 
kingdom.* 

Sayings  of  Jesus  bearing  such  meaning  justify  the  great 
importance  attached  to  His  death  in  the  Apostolic  Church 
Of  this  there  are  traces  everywhere  in  the  New  Testament, 
emd  not  least  in  the  four  Gospela  These  Gospels,  by  their 
careful  circumstantial  narratives  of  the  incidents  connected 
with  the  Crucifiiion,  sufficiently  attest  how  central  was 
the  place  occupied  by  the  death  of  the  Lord  Jesus  in  the 
minds  of  believers.  The  story  of  the  Passion,  told  with 
such  wondrous  simplicity  and  pathos  by  all  the  evangelists, 
is  not  theology,  but  it  is  something  better.  It  is  the  pro- 
duct of  a  piety  which  saw  in  the  cross  and  its  accompani- 
ments a  conflict  between  the  sin  of  the  world  and  the 
patient  love  of  God,  and  victory  lying  with  the  vanquished. 
It  is  no  indignant  tale  of  foul  wrong  done  to  the  innocent, 
as  it  well  might  have  been.  The  narrators  have  risen  above 
indignation  into  perfect  tranquillity  of  spirit,  because  what 
now  chiefly  occupies  their  thoughts  is  not  man's  iniquity 
but  Christ's  meekness.  They  have  not  got  the  length  of  a 
theory  of  atonement — at  least,  they  state  none ;  but  they  see 
on  Calvary  the  fact  of  the  Just  One  benignantly  bearing 
indignities  heaped  upon  Him  by  the  unjust,  and  graciously 
forgiving  His  murderers.  And  what  they  see  they  say  in 
severely  simple  terms  without  sentiment  or  reflection,  leav- 
ing the  story  to  speak  for  itself.  And  it  has  spoken,  and 
continues  to  speak,  with  a  power  far  beyond  that  of  any 
possible  attempt  at  theological  interpretation.     Stand  by 

> Matt  ztL  Sl-aS.  ■Matt  zx.  28. 

•llattzzvLlS.  •Matkzxviaa. 


JBSUS   RISEN.  383 

the  cross  with  Mary  if  you  would  feel  the  spell  of  the 
Crucified.  Thence  emanates  an  influence  you  will  never 
be  able  to  put  fully  into  worda  Theological  formulaB  may 
or  may  not  satisfy  the  intellect,  but  it  is  the  evangelic 
story  of  the  Passion  itself  that  moves  the  heart.  Whatever 
formula  we  use  must  be  filled  with  the  story  in  order  to 
become  a  vital  religious  force.  Nowhere  more  than  here 
have  we  occasion  to  note  the  unspeakable  value  of  the 
Gospels  to  the  Christian  faith  and  life.  "  The  love  of  Christ 
constraineth  us,"  writes  Paul.  He  means  the  love  of  Christ 
in  dying  for  sinners.  What  a  poor  idea  we  should  have 
had  of  that  love  had  the  history  of  the  Passion  been  with- 
held ;  how  little  we  should  have  known  of  its  constraining 
power! 


CHAPTER  IV. 

JESUS  BISEH. 

LiTERATTTBB. — Strauss,  Dos  Leben  Jesus  fWr  das  Deutseht 
Volk;  Eenan,  Les  Apotres ;  Weizsacker,  Uhterstichungen 
uber  die  Uvang-Geschichte,  1864 ;  Keim,  IHe  Geschichie  Jesu, 
von  Nazara,  Band  III. ;  Holsten,  Zum  Evangelium  des  Petrvs 
und  des  Paulus;  Fairbairn,  Studies  in  the  Life  of  Christ; 
Milligan,  The  Resurrection  of  our  Lord  (Croall  Lectures, 
1881);  Abbott,  Philochristus  and  Onesimus;  Wace,  The 
Gospel  and  its  Witnesses,  1883;  Martiueau,  The  Seat  of 
Authority  in  Religion,  pp.  358-378. 

The  Apostle  Paul  represents  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  as 
a  fact  of  fundamental  moment  to  Christianity.  "  If  Christ 
be  not  risen,  then  is  our  preaching  vain,  and  your  faith  is 
also  vain."*  Modem  unbelief  regards  the  fact  of  the 
resurrection  as  of  no  importance,  maintaining  that  it  is  the 
spirit  or  image  of  Jesus  continuing  to  work  in  the  world 
about  which  alone  we  need  to  care.  Some,  indeed,  aoknow- 
*  1  Oor.  XT.  14 


384  APOLOGETICS. 

ledge  that  everything  turns  on  the  question  as  to  the 
reality  of  the  resurrection.  Strauss  speaks  of  that  event 
as  the  point  at  which  he  must  either  admit  the  failure  of 
the  naturalistic  and  historical  view  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  and 
retract  all  he  has  written,  or  pledge  himself  to  show  the 
possibility  of  the  result  of  the  evangelic  accounts — that  is, 
the  origin  of  the  hditf  in  the  resurrection  without  any 
corresponding  miraculous  fact^ 

Whatever  diversity  of  opinion  may  prevail  as  to  the 
importance  of  the  historic  fact,  there  is  entire  agreement  as 
to  the  vital  importance  of  the  hdief  in  the  fact  entertained 
by  the  apostles  and  the  Church  founded  by  them.  All 
admit  both  the  existence  of  the  belief  and  the  essential 
service  it  rendered  in  establishing  and  advancing  the 
Christian  religion.  Baur,  t.g.,  was  fully  aware  that  without 
that  belief  Christianity  could  not  have  got  started  on  its 
marvellous  world-conquering  career.  That  being  so,  it  is 
obviously  incumbent  on  all  who  undertake  to  give  a  purely 
natural  account  of  the  origin  of  Christianity  to  explain  the 
origin  of  the  belief  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus.  This, 
however,  they  find  great  difficulty  in  doing.  Baur  made 
no  attempt  at  solving  the  problem ;  as  Strauss  remarked, 
he  avoided  the  burning  question,  and,  assuming  the  faith 
in  the  resurrection  as  a  fact  not  to  be  disputed,  however 
mysterious,  contented  himself  with  tracing  its  historical 
effects.  This  reserve  may  have  been  due  in  part  to 
prudential  considerations,  but  it  was  due  also,  doubtless, 
to  a  vivid  sense  of  the  unsatisfactoriness  of  all  past  attempts 
to  account  for  the  belief  in  Christ's  rising  from  the  dead 
on  naturalistic  principles.  All  theologians  holding  such 
principles  have  not  been  so  discreet.  Several  have  tried 
their  hand  at  a  solution  of  the  hard  problem,  each  in 
turn  criticising  his  predecessor's  theory,  and  all  together, 
by  their  mutual  criticisms,  making  the  work  of  refuting 
sceptical  views  on  the  subject  a  comparatively  easy  task 
for  the  apologist 


JBSUS   RISEN.  885 

Hie  hypotheses  that  have  been  suggested  for  explaining 
away  the  resurrection  may  be  reduced  to  these  five : — 

1.  That  the  whole  affair  was  a  matter  of  theft  and  false- 
hood— falsehood  on  the  part  of  Jesus,  or  His  friends,  or 
both  combined,  in  collusion  with  one  another,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  propagating  the  belief  that  the  Crucified  One  had 
risen  again. 

2.  That  Jesus  was  never  really  dead ;  that  after  a 
temporary  lapse  of  consciousness  He  revived,  and  was 
actually  seen  several  times  by  some  of  His  disciples ;  that 
He  lived  long  enough  to  be  seen  of  Paul ;  then,  finally,  died 
in  some  secret  comer. 

3.  That  the  appearances  of  the  so-called  **  risen  **  Christ 
were  purely  subjective,  due  to  the  excited  state  of  mind  in 
which  the  disciples  found  themselves  after  the  death  of 
their  beloved  Master.  They,  of  course,  longed  to  see  the 
dead  One  again ;  they  thought  they  did  see  Him  more 
than  once ;  their  thought  was  perfectly  honest,  but  it  was, 
nevertheless,  a  hallucination.     This  is  the  vision  theory. 

4.  That  the  appearances  were  not  purely  subjective, 
but  had  an  objective  cause,  which,  however,  wag  not  the 
veritable  body  of  Christ  risen  from  His  grave,  but  the 
glorified  Spirit  of  Christ  producing  visions  of  Himself  for 
the  comfort  of  His  faithful  ones,  as  if  sending  telegrams 
from  heaven  to  let  them  know  that  all  was  well 

5.  That  there  were  no  appearances  to  be  accounted  for, 
but  only  a  strong  way  of  speaking  on  the  part  of  the 
disciples  concerning  the  continued  life  of  the  Crucified, 
which  gave  rise  to  a  misunderstanding  in  the  Apostolic 
Church  that  embodied  itself  in  the  traditions  of  Christo- 
phanies  recorded  in  the  Gospels. 

The  first  of  these  hypotheses,  propounded  by  Reimarus 
and  kindred  spirits,  is  entirely  ont  of  date.  Men  of  all 
schools  in  modem  times  would  be  ashamed  to  identify 
themselves  with  so  base  a  suggestion ;  we  may  therefore 
leave  it  to  tbe  oblivion  it  deserves,  and  confine  our  Atten- 
tion to  the  following  four. 

2b 


389  APOLOOEnOBw 

The  second  hjpothesis,  that  of  an  apparent  death  at 
swoon,  was  in  favour  with  the  old  rationalists  represented 
by  Dr.  Paulus,  and  obtained  for  itself  more  respect  than  it 
deserves  by  the  patronage  of  Schleiermacher.  The  explana- 
tion offered  by  those  who  espouse  this  hypothesis  is  as 
follows : — Crucifixion,  even  when  both  feet  and  hands  are 
pierced,  causes  little  loss  of  blood,  and  kills  only  very 
slowly,  by  convulsions  or  by  starvation.  If  then  Jesus, 
believed  to  be  dead,  was  taken  down  from  the  cross  after 
some  six  hours,  the  supposed  death  may  very  well  have 
been  only  a  swoon,  from  which,  after  lying  in  the  cool 
cavern  covered  with  healing  ointments  and  strongly- 
scented  spices.  He  might  readily  recover.  In  support  of 
the  suggestion,  reference  is  made  to  an  account  by  Josephas 
of  the  recovery  of  one  of  three  acquaintances  of  his  own 
whom  he  found  on  the  way  crucified  along  with  others, 
and  whom  he  asked  permission  to  take  down  from  their 
crosses. 

Admitting  the  abstract  possibility  of  a  recovery  from 
swoon  caused  by  pain  and  exhaustion,  there  is  against  this 
hypothesis  the  clear  unanimous  testimony  of  the  evan- 
gelists that  Jesus  was  actually  dead,  not  to  speak  of  the 
statement  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  that  His  side  was  pierced 
by  the  unerring  spear  of  a  Roman  soldier.  Another  con- 
sideration fatal  to  the  theory  has  been  strongly  put  both  by 
Strauss  and  by  Keim.  It  is  that  a  Jesus  who  had  never 
been  dead  coming  from  His  tomb  wearing  an  exhausted, 
ghastly  look  could  never  have  revived  the  hearts  of  the 
disciples,  or  led  them  to  believe  in  a  Christ  who  had  been 
dead,  and  was  alive  again.  Strauss  states  the  objection 
thus — 

"  It  is  impossible  that  a  being  who  had  stolen  half-dead 
out  of  the  sepulchre,  who  crept  about  weak  and  ill,  wanting 
medical  treatment,  who  required  bandaging,  strengthening, 
and  indulgence,  and  who  still  at  last  yielded  to  His  sufier- 
ings,  could  have  given  to  the  disciples  the  impression  that 
He  was  a  conqueror  over  leath  and  the  grave,  the  Prince  ol 


JESUS   RISEN.  387 

Life,  an  impression  which  lay  at  the  bottom  of  their  future 
ministry.  Such  a  resuscitation  could  only  have  weakened 
the  impression  which  He  had  made  upon  them  in  life  and 
in  death ;  at  the  most,  could  only  have  given  it  an  elegiac 
voice,  but  could  by  no  possibility  have  changed  their  sorrow 
into  enthusiasm,  or  have  elevated  their  reverence  into 
worship." ' 

The  swoon  hypothesis  finds  little  support  among  recent 
writers.  The  larger  number  of  votes  is  given  to  the  vision 
theory.  Among  the  ablest  supporters  of  this  theory  are 
Kenan  and  Strauss.  It  may  be  the  easiest  way  of  making 
ourselves  acquainted  with  its  bearings  to  hear  what  they 
have  to  say  in  its  favour. 

First,  let  us  hear  Kenan — 

"  Enthusiasm  and  love  know  no  situations  without  escape. 
They  make  sport  of  the  impossible,  and  rather  than  renounce 
hope  they  do  violence  to  reality.  Many  words  spoken  by 
the  Master  could  be  interpreted  in  the  sense  that  He  would 
come  forth  from  the  tomb.  Such  a  belief  was,  moreover, 
so  natural  that  the  faith  of  the  disciples  would  have  sufficed 
to  create  it.  The  great  prophets  Enoch  and  Elias  did  not 
taste  of  death.  That  which  happened  to  them  must  happen 
to  Jesus.  .  .  .  Death  is  a  thing  so  absurd  when  it  strikes 
the  man  of  genius  or  of  a  great  heart,  tliat  people  cannot 
believe  in  the  possibility  of  such  an  error  of  nature.  Heroes 
do  not  die.  .  .  .  That  adored  Master  had  filled  the  circle  of 
which  He  was  the  centre  with  joy  and  hope — could  they  be 
content  to  let  him  rot  in  the  tomb  ? "  * 

Kesolved  that  Jesus  should  not  remain  among  the  dead, 
the  believing  company  were  in  a  fit  state  of  mind  for  see- 
ing the  dead  one  alive  again.  The  empty  tomb — how 
emptied  no  one  can  tell — helped  to  make  them  more  liable 
to  hallucination.  Mary  Magdalene  was  the  first  to  have 
a  vision.  She  stood  by  the  sepulchre  weeping;  she 
heard  a  light  noise  behind  her.  She  turned ;  she  saw  a 
man  standing ;  asked  him  where  the  body  was ;  received 
for  reply  her  own  name,  "  Mary."     It  was  the  voice  thai 

1  New  Lif*,  L  41S-  *  V*dt  Let  Apdtrea,  pp.  2,  t. 


388  APOLOGETICa 

80  often  made  her  tremble.  It  was  the  accent  of  Jesua 
The  miracle  of  love  is  accomplished.  Mary  has  seen  and 
heard  Him.  After  one  has  seen  Him,  there  will  be  no 
difficulty  in  others  seeing  Him  ;  having  visions  will  become 
infectious  till  it  pass  through  the  whole  company  of 
disciples. 

Such  is  the  Eenan  style  of  treatment — sentimental, 
theatrical,  Parisian.  The  appearances  of  Jesus  are  the 
creation  of  excited  nerves  and  ardent  expectations.  The 
slightest  outward  occasion  acting  on  so  susceptible  subjects 
will  produce  an  apparition.  During  a  moment  of  silence 
some  light  air  passes  over  the  face  of  the  assembled  dis- 
ciples. At  such  decisive  hours,  a  current  of  air,  a  creaking 
window,  a  chance  murmur  decides  the  belief  of  centuries. 
Nothing  easier  than  to  see  the  risen  One ;  nothing  easier 
than  to  comprehend  the  hallucinations  of  those  devoted 
ones.* 

Strauss  goes  to  work  in  a  different  way.  He  bases  his 
argument  on  the  fact  that  Paul  classes  the  appearance  of 
Jesus  to  himself  with  the  earlier  appearances  to  the  dis- 
ciples, and  reasons  thus:  The  visions  recorded  in  the 
Gospels  were  the  same  in  nature  as  that  with  which  Paul 
was  favoured.  But  Paul's  vision  was  beyond  question 
subjective,  and  Paul  was  a  man  predisposed  to  have  such 
visions.  He  himself  tells  us  that  ecstatic  conditions  were 
of  frequent  occurrence  with  him.'  His  statement  suggests 
attacks  of  convulsion,  perhaps  of  epilepsy,  as  the  physical 
cause  of  such  experience,  a  suggestion  confirmed  by  what 
he  says  elsewhere  concerning  the  weakness  of  his  body. 
A  man  with  such  a  constitution  was  likely  to  have  visions, 
in  which  were  projected  into  space  the  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings of  his  mind  at  a  crisis  of  great  excitement,  like  that 
of  his  conversion,  when  he  was  struggling  against  rising 

1  Vide  La  Ap6tre$,  p.  6  ill  Principal  Fairbaim  (Studia  in  the  L\ft 
iffOhriat,  p.  841)  diatingnishea  Benan'i  theory  u  ih9  PJuuUasmcU,  It  if 
wrtaiiily  {rihantastic  enoogh. 

>  2  Cot.  ziL  1  £ 


JESUS  RISEN.  389 

oonyictious.  And  we  can  understand,  in  the  light  of  his 
experience,  how  the  disciples  might  have  visions  of  Jesus 
after  His  death.  That  event  was  a  great  shock  to  their 
faith  in  Jesus  as  Messiah,  and  they  must  have  felt  a  very 
strong  impulse  to  overcome  the  contradiction  somehow. 
Searching  the  Scriptures,  they  found  passages  which 
seemed  to  teach  that  it  was  appointed  to  Messiah  to 
die,  yet  that  death  should  not  have  power  over  Him. 
Hence  they  came  at  last,  in  the  light  of  events,  so  to 
interpret  the  prophecies  that  they  could  include  both  death 
and  resurrection  in  Messiah's  experience.  Jesus  had  died ; 
it  was  now  to  be  expected  that  He  should  rise  again, 
according  to  the  Scriptures.  They  did  expect  and  long  for 
so  welcome  an  event,  and  out  of  their  expectation  came  the 
visions  which  led  them  to  believe  that  their  Master  was 
risen.  "  The  heart  thinks ;  the  hour  brings."  Not  all  at 
once,  not  so  soon  as  the  Gospels  represent,  did  the  visions 
come ;  for  time  was  needed  to  bring  about  a  revulsion 
from  the  depression  caused  by  the  Crucifixion  to  the  excite- 
ment out  of  which  the  visions  sprang.  The  disciples 
retired  to  Galilee,  and  there,  brooding  on  the  Scriptures 
and  visiting  familiar  haunts,  they  gradually  got  into  the 
state  of  mind  required  for  seeing  visions.* 

The  vision  hypothesis  has  been  sharply  criticised,  and 
many  weak  points  have  been  detected  in  it.  Among 
these  may  be  noted,  in  the  first  place,  that,  according  to 
Strauss,  the  more  rational  advocate  of  the  theory,  time 
was  needed  to  develop  the  state  of  mind  demanded, 
whereas,  according  to  the  records,  the  Christophanies 
began  within  three  days  of  the  Crucifixion,  and  were  all 
comprised  within  a  space  of  little  more  than  a  month.  It 
is  a  disadvantage  to  the  theory  that  it  should  be  obliged 
to  depart  so  seriously  from  the  evangelic  tradition. 

Assuming  that  the  Christophanies  began  as  early  as 
represented  in  the  Gospels,  a  second  objection  to  the  vision 
theory  arises  out  of  the  fact  that  at  the  time  the  resur- 
I  New  Life  o/JeauB,  i  430. 


390  APOLOQETICa. 

rection  is  reported  to  have  taken  taken  place,  and  Jesus  tu 
have  showed  Himself  alive  after  His  Passion,  the  disciples 
were  in  so  depressed  a  state  of  mind  that  subjective  visions 
were  the  last  thing  in  the  world  likely  to  befall  them.  All 
the  Gospels  testify  to  the  depressed,  unexpectant  mood  of 
the  disciples  at  this  period.  Matthew  states  that  on  the 
occasion  of  Christ's  meeting  with  His  followers  in  Galilee 
"  some  doubted."  ^  Mark  relates  that  when  the  disciples 
heard  from  Mary  of  Magdala  that  Jesus  was  alive,  and 
had  been  seen  of  her,  "  they  believed  not" '  Luke  tells 
that  the  reports  of  the  women  seemed  to  the  disciples  as 
"  idle  tales."  •  In  place  of  general  statements,  John  gives 
an  example  of  the  incredulity  of  the  disciples  in  the  case 
of  Thomas.*  The  women,  too,  appear  not  less  unexpectant 
than  the  eleven.  They  set  out  towards  the  sepulchre  on 
the  morning  of  the  first  day  of  the  week  with  the  intention 
of  embalming  the  dead  body  of  Jesus.  Unexpectant  of  the 
resurrection,  the  company  of  believers  appear  also  in  the 
records  equally  sceptical  as  to  the  reality  of  the  appearances 
of  the  risen  Lord.  The  disciples  doubt  now  the  sub- 
stantiality, now  the  identity,  of  the  person  who  appears  to 
them.  Their  theory  was  that  what  they  saw  was  a  ghost 
or  mere  phantom,  just  the  theory  of  Kenan  and  Strauss ; 
and  the  fact  that  they  entertained  that  theory  makes  it 
very  difficult  for  us  to  receive  it,  and  to  believe  with 
Strauss  that  the  faith  in  Jesus  as  the  Christ,  after  receiving 
through  His  death  an  apparently  fatal  shock,  was  sub- 
jectively restored  by  the  instrumentality  of  the  mind,  the 
power  of  imagination,  and  nervous  excitement. 

Besides  the  foregoing  objections  to  the  vision  theory,  others 
have  been  urged  with  great  force  by  Keim.  He  rejects  the 
theory  chiefly  on  these  three  grounds:  (1)  The  simple, 
earnest,  almost  cold  unfamiliar  character  of  the  manifesta- 

1  Matt.  xxriiL  17. 

'  Mark  zvL  11.     This,  however,  belongs  to  the  App«ndlz,  whioh  fonni 
no  part  of  the  original  Gospel 
'  Luke  xxiv.  11.  *  John  zx.  24-29. 


JESUS   RISEN.  801 

tions ;  (2)  the  speedy  ceBsation  of  the  appearances ;  (3)  the 
entire  change  in  the  mood  of  the  disciples  within  a  short 
time,  from  the  excited  state  which  predisposes  to  visions  to 
clear  knowledge  of  Christ's  Messianic  dignity  and  energetic 
resolves  to  bear  witness  to  the  world  for  their  risen  and 
exalted  Lord.  In  regard  to  the  first  Keim  contends  that 
the  manifestations  would  not  have  possessed  such  a  char- 
acter had  they  been  purely  subjective  in  their  origin.  In 
illustration  of  the  second,  he  observes  that  the  mental 
excitement  which  makes  optical  hallucinations  possible 
demands  a  certain  breadth  and  width  of  time,  as  is  seen  in 
the  case  of  Montanism  which  filled  half  a  century  with  its 
multiform  follies.  With  reference  to  the  third,  he  points 
out  that  the  sudden  change  of  mood  in  the  disciples  is 
contrary  to  the  usual  course  of  such  morbid  conditions. 
The  excitement  which  created  the  visions  ought  to  have 
lasted  a  considerable  time,  to  have  cooled  down  gradually, 
and  to  have  terminated  not  in  illumination  and  energy,  but 
in  dulness,  languor,  and  apathy. 

These  are  forcible  objections  based  on  diflBculties  which 
the  vision  hypothesis  cannot  surmount  What  then  ? 
Does  Keim  accept  the  faith  of  the  Catholic  Church  that 
Christ  rose  from  the  dead  with  the  body  in  which  He  died 
revivified  and  transfigured,  and  in  that  body  showed  Him- 
self to  His  followers  ?  He  does  not ;  and  yet  he  admits 
that  the  Christophanies  were  not  hallucinations,  but  had 
their  origin  in  an  objective  cause.  His  idea  is  that  Jesus, 
continuing  still  to  live  in  His  Spirit,  produced  the  mani- 
festations which  the  disciples  took  for  bond  fde  bodily 
appearances  of  their  risen  Master,  to  give  them  assurance 
that  He  still  lived,  and  that  death  had  not  extinguished 
His  being.     In  His  own  words — 

"  Without  the  living  Jesus  the  Messianic  faith  had  been 
destroyed  by  the  Crucifixion,  and  in  the  return  of  the  apostles 
to  the  synagogue  and  to  Judaism  even  the  gold  of  Christ's 
teaching  had  been  buried  in  the  dust  of  oblivion.  The 
greatest  of  men  had  passed  away  leaving  no  trace  of  Himselt 


392  APOLOOETIOa: 

Galilee  might  for  some  time  have  related  of  Him  truth  and 
fiction,  but  His  cause  had  produced  no  rt '  -crious  revolution, 
and  no  Paul.  It  lands  in  impossibilities  to  make  the  ordained 
of  God  80  end,  or  to  hand  over  His  resurrection  from  the 
dead  and  for  the  dead  to  the  uncertain  play  of  visions.  A 
sign  of  life  from  Jesus,  a  telegram  from  heaven  was  necessary, 
after  the  crushing  overthrow  of  the  Crucifixion,  especially  in 
the  childhood  of  humanity.  Even  the  Christianity  of  the 
present  day  owes  to  this  telegram  from  heaven,  first  the 
Lord,  and  then  itself.  .  .  .  The  hope  of  immortality,  other- 
wise a  mere  perhaps,  has  become  through  Christ's  word,  and 
visibly  through  His  deed,  a  bright  light  and  clear  truth."  ' 

This  new  telegram  hypothesis,  as  it  may  be  called,  goes, 
it  will  be  observed,  beyond  the  limits  of  naturalism.  This 
its  author  frankly  admits.  Science,  he  tells  us,  is  non- 
plussed by  the  hard  problem.  History  can  take  cog- 
nisance only  of  the  faith  of  the  disciples  that  the  Master 
was  risen,  and  of  the  marvellous  effect  of  this  faith — the 
founding  of  Christianity.  But  while  science  and  history  must 
stop  there,  faith  can  go  further ;  that  faith  which  ascends 
from  the  world  to  God,  from  the  natural  to  the  super- 
natural, and  can  overstep  the  limits  of  sensible  perception, 
and  of  the  natural  order  to  which  science  is  bound  down. 
In  the  exercise  of  this  power  it  assures  us  not  only  that 
Jesus  at  death  took  HiB  course  to  the  world  of  spirits,  but 
that  it  was  He  and  no  other  who  from  that  world  gave  to 
His  disciples  visions,  and  revealed  Himself  to  His  former 
oompaniona  On  this  view  the  question  of  the  resurrection 
as  between  Keim  and  the  Catholic  Church  would  seem  to 
be  a  question  of  fact  rather  than  one  involving  the  theory 
of  the  universe.  It  is  simply  a  question  whether  what  was 
seen  was  the  body  that  was  laid  in  the  tomb,  or  a  vision 
bearing  the  likeness  of  that  body,  produced  for  the  benefit 
of  his  disciples  by  the  still  living  Spirit  of  Jesus. 

While  not  a  whit  more  acceptable  to  thoroughgoing 
naturalism  than  the  Catholic  view,  Keim's  theory  has  the 
disadvantage  of  being  obliged  to  tamper  with  the  gospel 

'  Juu  von  Nazara,  til.  605. 


JESUS   RISEN.  S98 

narratives.  He  calls  in  question,  for  example,  the  statement 
that  the  grave  was  found  empty.  Why  adopt  a  view  which 
renders  that  necessary  without  any  compensating  advantage  ? 
Why  not  accept  the  view  that  the  body  seen  was  the  body 
that  had  lain  in  the  tomb  ?  Is  it  because  one  cannot  con- 
ceive of  a  dead  body  coming  to  life  again  ?  Can  one  any 
better  conceive  of  the  appearance  of  a  body  produced  in 
space  by  the  power  of  Christ's  will  exerted  from  heaven  f 
Surely  the  heavenly  telegram  which  comes  out  at  the 
earthly  end  as  the  image  of  a  body  is  as  much  a  wonder 
as  the  rising  of  a  dead  body  from  the  grave ! 

One  other  observation  may  be  made  on  this  theory.  It 
is  open  to  the  charge  which  is  justly  brought  against  the 
vision  theory,  that  it  makes  the  faith  of  the  disciples  rest 
on  a  hallucination.  Christ  sends  a  series  of  telegrams  from 
heaven  to  let  His  disciples  know  that  all  is  well.  But 
what  does  the  telegram  say  in  every  case  ?  Not  merely, 
My  Spirit  lives  with  God  and  cares  for  you ;  but,  my  body 
is  risen  from  the  grave.  That  was  the  meaning  they  put 
on  the  telegrams,  and  could  not  help  putting.  If  that 
meaning  was  untrue  to  fact,  how  easy  to  have  given  another 
Bort  of  sign  J  Why  not  emit  a  voice  from  heaven,  saying : 
Be  of  good  cheer,  it  is  well  with  me,  and  I  shall  see  to  it 
that  it  shall  be  well  with  you  till  we  meet  ere  long  again. 
If  the  resurrection  be  an  unreality,  if  the  body  that  was 
nailed  to  the  tree  never  came  forth  from  the  tomb,  why 
send  messages  that  were  certain  to  produce  an  opposite 
impression  ?  Why  induce  the  apostles,  and  through  them 
the  whole  Christian  Church,  to  believe  a  lie  ?  Truly  this 
is  a  poor  foundation  to  build  Christendom  upon,  a  bastard 
Bupernaturalism  as  objectionable  to  unbelievers  as  the  true 
supernaturalism  of  the  Catholic  creed,  and  having  the 
additional  drawback  that  it  offers  to  faith  asking  for  bread 
a  stone. 

The  foregoing  hypotheses  all  go  on  the  assumption  that 
there  was  a  real  experience  of  the  disciples  demanding 
explanation.     They  saw  the  real  body  of  Jesus  who  had 


394  APOLOGBTIO& 

not  been  actually  dead,  or  they  thought  they  saw  the  risen 
body  of  the  dead  Jesus  and  were  mistaken,  or  they  saw  the 
real  image  of  the  body  and  were  not  mistaken.  According 
to  the  most  recent  hypothesis  there  was  no  experience  to 
explain.  The  Christophanies  had  no  existence  for  the  first 
disciples,  but  found  a  place  only  in  the  later  traditions 
reported  in  the  Gospels,  so  that  what  needs  to  be  explained 
is  simply  the  rise  of  the  legend  of  the  resurrection.  Such 
is  the  view  which,  following  hints  from  Weizsacker,* 
Dr.  Martineau  has  espoused  and  advocated  with  his 
accustomed  brilliancy.  The  fact  basis  of  the  legend  in 
the  experience  of  the  disciples  was,  he  thinks,  simply  this, 
that  they  believed  that  Jesus,  the  crucified,  "  still  lives,  and 
only  waits  the  Father's  time  to  fulfil  the  promises ; "  lives, 
not  like  ordinary  mortals,  in  "  the  storehouse  of  souls  in  the 
underworld,"  but  with  exceptional  spirits,  like  Enoch, 
Moses,  and  Elijah,  in  the  home  of  angels.  This  faith  came 
to  them  as  their  consolation  after  they  had  recovered  from 
the  awful  shock  of  Calvary,  just  as  there  comes  to  all,  after 
the  first  burst  of  passionate  grief  over  bereavement,  the 
consolatory  thought  that  the  dead  one  still  lives  in  a  better 
world-  It  came  to  them  all  the  sooner,  because  of  the 
commanding  personality  of  Jesus.  They  could  not  believe 
that  death  could  be  the  extinction  of  such  an  one  as  He. 
He  must  live  still,  like  the  great  ones  of  the  Old  Testament 
(Kenan's  motto — "  Heroes  die  not " — would  seem  after  all 
to  be  the  key  to  the  situation).  This  faith  that  Jesus 
continued  to  live  was  the  faith  in  the  resurrection  for  the 
first  disciples.  They  said,  indeed,  that  they  had  seen  Jesus. 
They  could  not  avoid  saying  this  in  their  preaching,  for  not 
otherwise  could  they  convey  to  others  the  strong  conviction 

*  Vide  Weiisacker,  Deu  Apostoluehe  Zeitalter,  p.  6.  In  hia  earlier  work, 
Untersuchnngen  fl&er  die  Evangdische  Oeschichte,  Weizsacker  expressed  a 
riew  more  akin  to  that  of  Eeim.  He  remarks  that  what  the  disoiplea 
experienced  proceeded  from  a  continuous  influence  upon  them  by  Jesus  after 
3.ia  death.  The  Christophanies  were  not  the  product  of  the  faith  or 
phantasy  of  the  disciples,  but  were  given  to  them  by  a  higher  power.  Vidt 
Untersuchungen,  pp.  672,  57S. 


JESUS    RISEN.  896 

of  Christ's  celestial  life  which  in  their  own  case  was  the 
fruit  of  personal  intercourse  with  Him.  But  they  meant 
no  more  than  Paul  meant  when  twenty -five  years  later  he 
claimed  to  have  seen  the  Lord  at  the  time  of  his  conver- 
sion. Paul's  vision,  so  far  as  we  can  gather  from  himself 
— the  accounts  in  the  Acts,  we  are  warned,  are  not  to  be 
trusted — was  purely  spiritual  And  we  are  reminded  that 
Paul  puts  his  vision  on  a  level  with  those  of  the  first 
disciples.  If,  tlierefore,  his  vision  was  spiritual,  so  was 
theirs.  But  how,  then,  we  naturally  inquire,  did  the  legend 
of  Christophanies  of  a  more  substantial  character  arise  ? 
The  answer  is,  through  the  craving  of  the  Jew  and  Pagan 
for  something  better  than  subjective  visions  in  proof  that 
Christ  still  lived.  Under  the  influence  of  this  craving, 
hearers  of  apostolic  testimony  would  be  prone  to  convert 
spiritual  visions  into  optical  ones,  and  the  apostles  them- 
selves would  be  tempted  not  to  be  very  careful  to  correct 
misapprehensi  on.^ 

The  new  theory,  of  which  the  above  is  a  brief  outline, 
raises  two  questions.  Does  it  give  a  true  account  of  the 
experience  of  the  first  disciples ;  and  does  it  give  a  probable 
explanation  of  the  rise  of  the  more  materialistic  legend  of 
the  resurrection  ? 

On  the  former  score  the  theory  is  very  open  to  attack. 
It  imputes  to  the  disciples  a  Pagan  or  Greek  conception  of 
the  life  beyond  as  purely  spirituaL  But  the  faith  of  the 
Jew  was  not  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul  but  in  a  re- 
incorporated life  of  the  man,  which,  though  lacking  the 
grossness  of  the  mortal  body,  was  still  perceptible  by  the 
senses.  Then  the  statement  concerning  the  nature  of  Paul's 
experience  is  far  from  indisputable.  Great  importance  is 
justly  attached  to  that  experience.  We  are  here  in  contact, 
not  with  hearsay  or  second  -  hand  reports,  but  with  the 
first-hand  evidence  of  a  witness  of  unimpeachable  integrity 
and  intelligence,  telling  us  what  happened  to  himself. 
Twice  over  in  his  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  he  claims 
'  The  Seat  oj  Avihxyrity  in  Religion,  pp.  363-877. 


398  APOLOOsnca. 

to  have  seen  the  Lord*  Did  he  mean  thereby  merely  that 
he  had  realised  vividly  Christ's  continued  existence,  or 
got  a  clear  insight  into  the  religious  significance  of  his 
earthly  history  ?  That  probably  he  did  mean,  but  also 
more.  We  must  remember  Paul's  position  at  this  period. 
He  was  confronted  with  men  who  called  in  question  his 
apostolic  standing  as  a  means  of  undermining  his  influence 
as  a  teacher.  What  right  had  he  to  have  a  peculiar  way 
of  interpreting  the  gospel ;  he  who  had  no  apostolic 
authority  like  the  eleven  with  whom  he  was  at  variance  ? 
Conscious  that  he  has  this  hostile  attitude  to  reckon  with, 
Paul  says,  among  other  things  in  self-defence,  "I  have 
seen  the  Lord."  It  was  certainly  his  interest  to  mean 
more  thereby  than  a  mere  subjective  vision.  For  his 
antagonists  might  very  readily  suggest,  What  is  a  mere 
mental  vision,  a  reflection  of  one's  own  moods  and  ideas, 
to  a  bond  fide  companionship  such  as  the  eleven  enjoyed  ? 
It  was  to  protect  himself  against  such  a  suggestion  that 
the  apostle  associated  his  own  vision  of  the  risen  Christ 
with  that  of  the  first  believers.  Modem  critics  take 
advantage  of  the  association  to  drag  the  visions  of  the 
disciples  down  to  the  supposed  subjective  level  of  the 
vision  of  Paul  But  Paul's  interest  and  intention  in 
classing  the  two  together  was  to  level  his  own  vision  up  to 
the  objectivity  of  the  earlier  Christophanies.  He  believed 
that  the  eleven,  that  Peter,  in  particular,  had  seen  the  risen 
Saviour  with  the  eye  of  the  body,  and  he  meant  to  claim 
for  himself  a  vision  of  the  same  kind.* 

The  explanation  given  by  the  new  theory  of  the  rise  of 
the  legend  of  a  physical  resurrection  is  equally  unsatis- 

*  1  Cor.  Ix.   1 1    "  Hare   I   not   seen  Jeans  Christ  our  Lord  f "  xr.  8 : 

"  Last  of  all  be  was  seen  of  me  also. " 

^  That  Paul  believed  in  a  corporeal  resurrection  is  evident  from  the 
«zpressiou,  "He  rose  again  the  third  day"  (1  Cor.  xv.  4).  Menegos 
remarks:  "The  mention  of  the  third  day  would  have  no  sense  if  Paul  had 
not  accepted  the  belief  of  the  community  of  Jerusalem  that  on  the  third  day 
Imaa  went  forth  alive  from  the  tomb." — Le  P^h6  et  la  Redemption  d'aprei 
Saint  Pavlt  p.  26L 


JBSUS  RISEN.  397 

factory.  It  amouDts  to  this,  that  the  faith  in  the  continued 
spiritual  existence  of  Jesus  produced  the  later  tradition  of 
optical  visions,  not  such  visions  the  faith.  It  is  a  view 
analogous  to  that  of  Strauss  concerning  the  rise  of  miracle 
myths,  viz.  that  the  faith  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah 
produced  these  miracle  legends.  In  both  cases  alike  the 
true  order  of  causality  is  inverted.  Unless  there  had  been 
wonderful  works  done  by  Jesus  they  would  never  have 
believed  Him  to  be  Messiah.  The  postulate  of  Strauss' 
own  theory  is  that  it  belongs  to  Messiah  to  do  such  works. 
That  postulate  did  not  take  its  place  in  men's  minds  for 
the  first  time  after  they  had  accepted  Jesus  as  the  Christ. 
In  like  manner  it  may  be  affirmed  that  without  such 
visions  as  the  Gospels  report,  the  first  disciples  were  not  at 
all  likely  to  have  attained  to  firm  faith  that  their  deceased 
Master  lived  stilL  The  element  of  truth  in  the  older 
theories  of  Strauss  and  Keim  is  just  this,  that  they  both 
recognise  that  visions  of  some  sort,  subjective  or  objective, 
were  necessary  to  produce  in  the  minds  of  the  disciples 
the  belief  that  their  Master  was  risea 

Then  observe  what  is  implied  in  the  assertion  that  the 
later  tradition  of  optical  visions  arose  from  the  strong 
manner  in  which  the  apostles  expressed  their  faith  that 
their  Master  lived  in  heaven.  They  said  they  had  seen 
Jesus  after  His  death,  and  their  hearers  understood  them  to 
mean  they  had  seen  Him  in  the  body.  They  had  to  say  they 
had  seen,  otherwise  their  hearers  would  not  have  believed 
that  Jesus  lived  on.  Is  this  not  very  like  the  reinstatement 
of  pious  fraud  as  a  factor  in  the  case,  by  reversion  in  part, 
or  in  a  refined  form,  to  the  long  -  abandoned  theory  of 
Eeimarus  ?  The  apostles  could  hardly  be  ignorant  how 
their  statements  were  likely  to  be  understood,  and  were  in 
fact  understood. 

The  result  of  the  foregoing  inquiry  is  that  all  naturalistic 
attempts  to  explain  away  the  resurrection,  up  to  this  date, 
have  turned  out  failures.  The  physical  resurrection  remains. 
It  remains,  it  need  not  be  added,  a  great  mystery.     Much 


398  APOLOGETICS. 

that  relates  to  this  august  event  is  enveloped  in  mystery 
Not  to  speak  of  the  discrepancy  in  the  narratives,  or  the 
angelic  agency,  there  is  the  fact  that  the  resurrection  body 
of  Jesus  appears  even  in  the  evangelic  accounts  a  pneu- 
matic body,  and  the  further  fact  that  according  to  the 
teaching  of  Paul,  as  well  as  the  suggestions  of  reason,  flesh 
and  blood,  a  gross  corruptible  body,  can  have  no  place  in 
the  kingdom  of  God,  or  in  the  eternal  world.  In  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus,  two  processes  seem  to  have  been 
combined  into  one :  the  revivification  of  the  crucified 
body,  and  its  transformation  into  a  spiritual  body  endowed 
with  an  eternal  form  of  existence ;  the  first  process  being 
merely  a  means  to  an  end,  the  actual,  if  not  the  indis- 
pensable, condition  of  the  second. 


CHAPTER  V. 

JESUS    LORD. 

LrxKRATUTCK.  —  Schleiermacher,  Der  Christliche  Glavhe  ; 
tJllmann,  Die  Silndlosigkeit  Jesu ;  Wace,  Christianity  and 
Morality  (Boyle  Lectures,  1874—75) ;  Abbott,  Onesimus ; 
Ptleiderer,  Paulinismus ;  Menegoz,  Le  P6chA  et  la  Eedemption 
d'apres  Saint  Paid;  Herrmann,  Der  Verkehr  des  Christen 
mit  Gott ;  Curteis,  The  Scientific  Obstacles  to  Christian  Belief 
(Boyle  Lectures,  1884);  Bruce,  7%e  Miraculous  Element  in 
the  Gospels  (Lectures  IX.  and  X.) ;  Bomemann,  Unterricht  im 
Christentum :  Lux  Mundi  (Essay  V.);  Le  Conte,  Evolution 
and  its  Relation  to  Beligious  T?ioujiht,  2nd  ed.  (especially 
chap.  viiL). 

Jesus  has  for  the  Christian  consciousness  the  religious 
value  of  God.  He  is  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  as  such  the 
object  of  devoted  attachment  and  reverent  worship. 
What  the  metaphysical  presuppositions  of  His  divinity 
may  be,  and  what  the  most  fitting  theological  formulation 
of  it,  are  questions  on  which  dififerent  opinions  have  been 
Eind  may  continue  to  be  entertained.     It  is  even  conceiv- 


JESUS   LOEIX  399 

able  that  the  Church  of  the  future  may  decline  to  discuss 
these  questions,  or  to  give  them  definite  dogmatic  answers, 
and  may  regard  with  the  reverse  of  satisfaction  the  answers 
given  in  past  ages.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  even 
now  there  exists  in  many  Christian  minds  a  feeling  of 
coldness,  not  to  say  aversion,  to  the  definition  of  Christ's 
person  handed  down  to  us  from  ancient  councils,  as  con- 
sisting of  two  distinct  natures  combined  in  the  unity  of  a 
single  personality.  This  is  not  to  be  mistaken  for  a  denial 
of  Christ's  divinity.  It  may  be  a  morbid  mood,  a  phase  of 
that  general  aversion  to  precise  theological  determinations 
which  is  an  outstanding  characteristic  of  the  present  time ; 
but  it  is  compatible  with  an  attitude  of  heart  towards  Jesus 
in  full  sympathy  with  the  faith  of  the  Catholic  Church 
concerning  Him,  even  in  the  most  orthodox  generations.* 

That  Jesus  had  the  religious  value  of  God  for,  and  was 
worshipped  by,  the  whole  Apostolic  Church  is  certain. 
They  called  Him  Lord,  Kvpio^,  the  equivalent  for  Jehovah 
in  the  Septuagint  version  of  the  Old  Testament.  With- 
out making  too  much  of  the  fact,  it  may  be  held  to 
imply  this,  at  least,  that  what  Jehovah  was  to  Israel, 
that  Jesus  was  to  the  religious  consciousness  of  Chris- 
tians, the  object  of  that  specific  worship  by  which  they 
were  distinguished  from  the  rest  of  the  world.  There 
is  no  difficulty  in  ascertaining  the  genesis  of  this  faith  of 
the  first  disciples  in  Jesus  as  divina  It  was  not  the 
result  of  speculative  thought,  it  need  not  even  be  regarded 
as  a  direct  revelation  unmediated  by  any  spiritual  experi- 
ence. It  sprang  out  of  the  impression  made  on  their 
minds  by  the   facts   of   Christ's    earthly    history.     Three 

•  Of  this  attitude  the  Ritschl  school  may  be  taken  an  representatives  in 
Clennany,  and  the  late  Dr.  Hatch  {vide  his  Hihhert  Lectures)  in  England. 
On  this  anti-dogmatio  tendency  the  late  Professor  Green  remarks :  "  Proteus 
will  not  be  so  bound.  The  individual,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  will 
formulate  the  Christian  experience,  aud  left  to  himself  will  formulate  it 
inadequately.  Released  from  the  dogma  of  the  Church,  he  will  make  a 
dogma  of  his  own,  which  will  react  upon  and  limit  the  experience." —  Wwks, 
7oL  iiL,  Essay  on  "Christian  Dogma,"  p.  182. 


400  AVOLOOEnCS. 

main  sources  of  tbe  faith  can  be  specified :  the  holiness  of 

Jesus,  His  death,  and  His  resurrection. 

At  the  Capernaum  crisis,  when  a  disenchanted  crowd 
deserted  Jesus  in  disgust,  Peter,  according  to  the  account 
in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  made  in  the  name  of  the  twelve  the 
confession :  "  We  believe  and  know  that  Thou  art  the  Holy 
One  of  God."  *  This  may  be  taken  to  be  a  faithful  reflec- 
tion of  the  feeling  which  arose  in  the  minds  of  the  disciples 
from  the  time  they  began  to  be  closely  associated  with 
Jesus,  and  steadily  grew  in  strength  and  vividness  as  their 
opportunities  of  observation  increased.  More  and  more  it 
was  borne  in  upon  them  that  the  Master  they  followed 
was  exceptional,  unique,  in  spirit  and  character.  They 
were  conscious  that  in  wisdom  and  goodness  He  far  sur- 
passed themselves ;  and  as  they  looked  around  they  noticed 
a  similar  contrast  between  Him  and  all  other  men.  Even 
the  hostile  attitude  towards  Him  of  the  paragons  of  the 
righteousness  in  vogue  tended  to  deepen  their  sense  of 
His  moral  worth.  It  made  them  note  more  carefully  the 
characteristics  of  His  goodness,  and  become  more  fully 
aware  how  rare  was  the  type  of  goodness  He  represented. 
It  forced  on  their  attention  a  remarkable  moral  pheno- 
menon which,  but  for  the  glaring  contrast  and  sharp 
conflict  between  their  Master  and  the  Pharisees,  might 
have  been  treated  as  a  thing  of  course.  The  contrast  and 
conflict,  doubtless,  involved  a  keen  trial  of  their  faith  and 
fidelity.  In  Christ's  company  they  had  to  learn  to  bear 
isolation,  and  to  become  weaned  from  the  common  habit  of 
taking  current  opinion,  or  the  majority,  as  the  guide  in 
moral  judgment  They  were  strongly  tempted  to  think 
that  the  thousands  on  one  side  must  be  right,  and  the  One 
on  the  other  side  must  be  wrong.  They  could  not  both 
be  right,  for  the  contrast  was  too  glaring ;  but  how  hard  to 
believe  that  so  many  men  reputedly  righteous  and  saintly 
were  missing  tlie  mark,  and  that  the  "  righteousness  of  the 
■cribes  and  Pharisees "  was  of  no  value  I  Nothing  wiU 
>  Mm  vi  89.    i  £ym  *w  Am>  is  the  reading  In  the  best  MS& 


JESUS   LORD.  401 

help  in  snch  a  case  but  personal  spiritual  discernment,  and 
courage  to  follow  our  own  moral  instincts.  These  qualities 
the  disciples  possessed  in  sufficient  strength  to  enable  them 
to  hold  on  to  Jesus  when  the  multitude  deserted  Him, 
and  the  wise  and  holy  blasphemed  Him.  And  their  reward 
was  a  great  discovery ;  that  in  this  forsaken  and  misjudged 
Man  a  new  revelation  of  Grod  was  given.  Whence  this 
unexampled  character,  this  wholly  original  way  of  thinking, 
feeling,  and  acting  ?  Obviously  not  from  the  spirit  of  the 
time  whereof  the  Pharisees  are  the  exponents,  but  from  the 
Spirit  of  God.  The  unholy  one,  as  men  esteem  Him,  ia 
just  on  that  account  the  Holy  One  of  God,  and  through 
Him  we  may  know,  as  has  never  been  known  before,  what 
Divine  HoUness  i& 

The  death  of  Jesus  was  a  mighty  factor  in  the  exaltation 
of  Him  to  the  place  of  Lord  in  the  hearts  of  believera 
In  the  Crucifixion  the  two  opposed  judgments  concerning 
Jesus  found  their  culminating  expression.  For  the  false 
dying  world  of  Judaism  He  became  thereby  the  supremely 
unholy,  profane,  accursed ;  for  the  new  Christian  world  the 
supremely  Just  and  Blessed.  To  the  one  Jesus  was  the 
abhorred  criminal,  to  the  other  the  revered  martyr.  But 
this  is  by  no  means  the  whole  truth.  For  the  company 
of  disciples  the  Crucified  was  much  more  than  the  true 
faithful  witness,  worthy  of  profouudest  veneration  because 
He  shrank  not  from  the  sacrifice  of  His  life  for  the 
truth.  He  was  the  Saviour  who  died  for  the  sin  of  the 
world;  of  His  enemies,  of  those  who  believed  in  Him. 
How  they  came  to  regard  the  death  of  Jesus  in  this  light 
need  not  here  be  discussed.  It  is  enough  to  say  that, 
beyond  doubt,  the  members  of  the  Apostolic  Church  with 
one  consent  did  so  regard  it.  The  point  now  to  be  noted 
is,  how  powerfully  and  irresistibly  the  thought  of  Jesus 
dying  as  a  Saviour  led  on  to  the  worship  of  Him  as 
Lord-  With  rapturous  enthusiasm  believers  in  tha 
crucified  Eedeemer  crowned  Him  their  Divine  King. 
"  Unto  Him  that  loved  us,  and  washed  us  from  our  sin 

2a 


402  APOLOOSnOB. 

in  His  own  blood,  be  gloiy  and  dominion   for  ewet  and 


ever. 


"1 


The  doxology  of  the  Apocalypse  strikes  the  keynote  of 
a  strain  which  runs  through  the  whole  New  Testament. 
Everywhere  there  is  a  close  connection  between  Soteriology 
and  Christology:  Jesus  Lord  because  Saviour.  This  is 
specially  notable  in  the  leading  epistles  of  Paul,  which, 
because  of  their  all  but  unquestioned  authenticity,  and  the 
exceptional  significance  of  the  religious  personality  of  their 
author,  are  invaluable  sources  of  information  as  to  the 
genesis  of  the  idea  cherished  by  the  Apostolic  Church 
concerning  the  person  of  Jesua  The  title  Lord  applied  to 
Jesus,  as  Paul  uses  it,  means  "the  One  who  by  His  death 
has  earned  the  place  of  sovereign  in  my  heart,  and  whom  I 
feel  constrained  to  worship  and  serve  with  all  my  powers." 
So,  for  example,  in  the  text :  "  God  forbid  that  I  should 
glory,  save  in  the  cross  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  by  whom 
the  world  is  crucified  to  me,  and  I  to  the  world ; " '  and 
in  that  other :  "  Being  justified  by  faith,  we  have  peace  with 
God  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ :  by  whom  also  we  have 
access  by  faith  into  this  grace  wherein  we  stand."*  In 
both  the  title  **  Lord "  is  used  with  conscious  intention  to 
acknowledge  a  debt  of  gratitude.  Paul  recognises  Christ's 
worthiness  to  be  called  Lord  because  He  died  for  man's 
salvation,  and  as  the  Lord  to  be  preferred  to  the  whole 
world,  and  all  its  possessions  and  enjoyments.  In  certain 
New  Testament  texts,  God  is  represented  as  making  the 
Crucified  One  "Lord,"  in  compensation  for  indignities 
meekly  endured,  and  as  the  reward  of  voluntary  self- 
humiliation.  In  the  above-cited  utterances  of  Paul,  we 
see  Christian  faith  and  love  co-operating  with  God  in  the 
exaltation  of  the  Redeemer. 

The   resurrection  also,  as  was  to  be  expected,  greatly 

helped    early    disciples  to   rise   to  a  lofty   conception    of 

Christ's    person.      A    most    interesting    and    instructive 

example  of  the  manner  in  which  it  influenced   Christian 

*  Bar.  L  S,  «.  '  0«L  tI  14.  *  Bom.  r.  h 


JESUS   LORIX  403 

thonght  concerning  the  Founder  of  the  faith  is  supplied  in 
the  statement  with  which  Paul  commences  his  Epistle  to 
the  Eomana  He  desires  apparently,  at  the  very  outset,  to 
explain  to  the  Roman  Church  his  Christological  position, 
as  it  is  obviously  one  of  his  principal  aims  in  that  writing 
to  indicate  to  that  important  Church  how  he  conceives  the 
Christian  faith  in  general.  A  statement  made  with  such 
an  aim  would  be  well  weighed  in  every  phrase  and  word, 
and  cannot  be  treated  as  an  obiter  dictum.  Note,  then, 
what  Paul  says  :  The  gospel  he  is  commissioned  to  preach 
is  "  concerning  One  who  is  God's  Son,  made  of  the  seed  of 
David  according  to  the  flesh,  and  who  was  constituted 
God's  Son  in  power,  according  to  the  spirit  of  holiness  from 
the  resurrection  of  the  dead."  The  person  so  described  is 
then  identified  with  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  finally  denomi- 
nated "  our  Lord,"  the  title  given  to  Him  in  common  by 
all  Christians.'  Two  points  are  specially  noteworthy  in 
this  passage, — the  reference  to  the  spirit  of  holiness,  and 
the  function  assigned  to  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  as  an 
event  through  which  He  was  constituted  the  Son  of  God 
"in  power."  Therefrom  we  learn  that  the  holiness  of 
Jesus,  and  His  rising  from  the  dead,  not  less  than  Hia 
redeeming  death,  played  an  important  part  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  apostle's  conception  of  Christ's  person.  The 
three  together  were  the  elements  out  of  which  grew  hia 
Christological  idea.  The  holy  life  of  Jesus  evidently  had  no 
small  share  in  leading  Paul  to  see  in  Him  the  Son  of  God 
in  a  unique  sense.  The  phrase  *  according  to  the  spirit  of 
holiness"  stands  in  manifest  contrast  with  the  phrase 
"  according  to  the  flesh."  It  signifies  that  Christ,  though 
partaker  of  human  flesh,  was  free  from  the  moral  taint 
ordinarily  associated  with  the  capf.  On  the  ground  of 
that  moral  purity,  Paul  ascribed  to  Jesus  a  Divine  Sonship 
involving  at  least  ethical  identity  with  God.  But  he 
appears  to  attach  still  more  importance  to  the  resurrection 
M  a  basis  for  the  doctrine  of  Christ's  Sonship.  Son  of 
»  Rom.  i  8,  4, 


404  APOLOQETIOS. 

God,  all  throngh  His  earthly  life,  in  virtue  of  His  holiness^ 
Jesus,  according  to  the  apostle,  was  constituted  God's  Son  in 
an  emphatic  degree  hj  the  resurrection.  "Constituted," 
for  the  rendering  "declared"  in  the  Authorised  Version,  and 
retained  in  the  Eevised,  does  not  do  justice  to  the  word 
used  by  PauL  It  points  to  something  more  than  manifesta- 
tion, to  a  change  in  Christ's  condition.  Probably  what  the 
apostle  has  in  mind  is  the  transformation  of  Christ's  outer 
physical  nature,  the  replacement  of  the  body  of  humiliation 
by  a  spiritual  glorious  body,  having  as  its  result  that  the 
risen  One  was  henceforth  altogether  a  spiritual  being,  the 
pneumatic  heavenly  man.  His  very  body  radiant  with 
heaven's  light  as  His  Spirit  was  spotlessly  pure.  The  idea 
is  that,  previous  to  the  resurrection,  Jesus  was  the  Son  of 
God  on  the  inner  side  of  His  being  (that  is  assumed,  not 
negatived,  by  optaOivro^),  but  after  the  resurrection  became 
Son  of  God  both  on  the  inner  and  on  the  outer  side,  the 
verb  having  its  full  force  in  the  sense  of  "  to  constitute  "  in 
reference  to  the  latter.  The  expression  "in  power"  (er 
hvvdfAei),  in  harmony  with  this  view,  must  be  taken  as 
meaning — fully,  out  and  out,  altogether,  without  qualifica- 
tion, implying  that  the  resurrection  was  the  actual  intro- 
duction of  Christ  into  the  full  possession  of  Divine  Sonship 
80  far  as  thereto  belonged,  not  only  the  inner  of  a  holy 
spiritual  essence,  but  also  the  outer  of  an  existence  -in 
power  and  heavenly  glory.* 

Such  were  the  feelings  and  trains  of  thought  through 
which  Paul  and  other  believers  in  the  apostolic  age  were 
led  on  to  faith  in  the  divine  significauce  of  Jesus.  They 
point  out  the  road  along  which  all  must  travel  to  the  same 
goal,  if  their  faith  is  to  have  any  true  value  and  virtue. 
A  ready-made  dogma  concerning  the  diviuity  of  Christ 
accepted  as  an  ecclesiastical  tradition  can  be  of  little  service 
to  us.  It  may  very  easily  be  of  serious  disservice,  acting 
as  a  veil  to  hide  the  true  Jesus  from  the  eye  of  the  souL 
The  onljp  faith  concerning  Jesus  as  the  Divine  Lord  worth 
*  So  Pfleiderer,  JPait/mMmiM,  p.  129. 


JESUS   LORD.  405 

possessing  is  that  which  springs  out  of  spiritual  insight  into 
its  historical  basis,  and  is  charged  with  ethical  significance.' 
Such  a  faith  calls  Jesus  Lord  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  is  legi- 
timate, wholesome,  and  fruitful  in  beneficent  eflfects.  What 
more  legitimate  and  wholesome  than  to  think  of  Jesus,  the 
uniquely  good,  as  the  very  Son  of  God,  absolutely  one  with 
God  in  mind,  will,  and  spirit  ?  Then  we  are  assured  that 
Jesus  is  a  veritable  revelation  of  the  Father.  The  Son 
hath  declared  Him.  And  the  revelation  is  welcome.  If 
God  be  like  Jesus,  the  world  has  cause  to  be  glad.  The 
worship  of  Jesus  as  God  is  the  worship  of  a  goodness 
which  inspires  trust  and  hope  in  every  human  breast 
What  more  legitimate  and  wholesome,  again,  than  the 
worship  of  the  Crucified  ?  It  means  that  self-sacrificing 
love  is  placed  on  the  throne  of  the  universe,  that  God  does 
not  keep  aloof  from  the  world  in  frigid  majesty,  but  enters 
into  it  freely  as  a  burden-bearer,  stooping  to  conquer  His 
own  rebellious  children.  On  the  metaphysical  side  the 
doctrine  may  be  encompassed  with  difficulty,  but  ethically 
it  is  worthy  of  all  acceptation. 

The  foregoing  account  of  the  genesis  of  apostolic  faith 
in  the  divinity  of  Jesus  may  create  the  impression  that  the 
title  Lord  given  to  Him  was  merely  the  exaggerated  expres- 
sion of  admiration  for  His  character  and  of  gratitude  for 
His  redeeming  love.  It  would  be  a  mistake,  however,  to 
suppose  that  the  person  of  Jesus  was  not  a  subject  of  theo- 
logical reflection  for  the  first  generation  of  believers.  There 
are  distinct  traces  of  this  in  the  epistles  of  Paul ;  for  ex- 
ample, in  the  statement  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans, 
"  For  this  Christ  died  and  rose  that  He  might  exercise  lord- 
ship over  both  dead  and  living,"^  in  which  the  divine  right 
of  Jesus  to  rule  over  the  afiections  and  destinies  of  all  men 
living  or  dead  is  proclaimed  in  a  theoretical  connection  of 

^  Herrmann  {Der  Verkthr  de$  Ohristen  mit  Oott,  p.  118,  2te  Anfl.) 
remarks  :  "The  right  confession  of  the  Godhead  of  Jesos  depends  on  experi' 
anoe  of  the  work  which  Qod  performs  throogh  Jesna  on  the  homan  BodL'* 

*Rom.  or.  9. 


406  APOLOGETICS. 

thought,  A  still  more  decided  example  may  be  found  in 
the  eighth  chapter  of  1st  Corinthians,  where  the  apostle 
speaks  of  Christ's  place  in  the  universe  in  a  connection  of 
thought  which  gives  to  his  statement  great  doctrinal  value.* 
With  reference  to  the  practice  of  eating  meat  offered  in 
sacrifice  to  idols,  he  has  strongly  asserted  the  truth  of  the 
Jewish  monotheistic  creed :  "  There  is  no  God,  except  one." 
One  wonders  what  after  this  he  will  say  concerning  Jesus. 
He  gratifies  our  curiosity  by  going  on  immediately  after  to 
make  this  statement :  "  For  while  it  may  be  the  case  that 
there  are  gods  so  called,  whether  in  heaven  or  in  earth,  as 
there  be  gods  many  and  lords  many,  yet  for  us  (Christians) 
there  is  one  God  the  Father  from  whom  are  all  things  and 
we  for  Him,  and  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ  through,  or  on 
account  of,'  whom  are  all  things,  and  we  (in  particular,  as 
a  spiritual  creation)  through  Him."  Here  we,  as  it  were, 
surprise  Paul  in  the  act  of  solving  a  delicate  problem.  As 
becomes  a  Jew  he  treats  as  nullities  the  gods  and  lords  of 
the  Gentiles,  regarding  them  as  gods  only  in  name  {deoi 
XeyofjLevoi),  and  over  against  these  nullities  he  sets  one  real 
Se6<i  and  one  real  Kvpio<i.  His  faith  in  the  one  he  has 
inherited  from  his  Jewish  fathers,  his  faith  in  the  other  has 
sprung  out  of  his  belief  in  Jesus  as  his  Eedeemer.  How 
are  the  two  faiths  to  be  combined,  how  are  their  objects  to 
be  conceived  as  related  to  each  other  ?  The  question 
involves,  apparently,  a  dilemma  for  one  by  birth  a  Jew,  and 
by  conversion  a  Christian.  Either  he  must  hold  fast  by 
the  abstract  monotheism  of  Judaism  and,  in  deference 
thereto,  negative  the  worship  of  Christ  under  the  title  of 
KvpLo<i  as  an  idolatry,  or  he  must  give  full  effect  to  his 
Christian  consciousness  and  worship  Jesus  as  a  Divine  Lord, 
and  modify  his  conception  of  deity  so  far  as  to  make  the 
divine  unity  compatible  with  plurality.  The  title  "  Father" 
appended  to  the  Divine  name  in  the  text  above  quoted 
indicates  that  the  apostle's  mind  gravitated  in  the  direction 
of  the  latter  alternative,  and  adopted  as  the  solution  of  the 
'  1  Cor.  tUL  4-d  *  The  reading  varieiL     Codex  KhmaV  i*, 


JESUS  LORD.  407 

theological  problem:  Jesus  Christ  1117  ^t^,  the  Son  of 
the  one  true  God  the  Father. 

The  resurrection  could  not  but  stimulate  an  active  mind, 
such  as  that  of  Paul,  to  theological  reflection.  To  its 
influence,  probably,  may  be  traced  the  theorem  of  the  pre- 
existence  of  Christ  enunciated  more  or  less  clearly  in  some 
Pauline  texts — e.g.  in  GaL  iv.  4,  "  God  sent  forth  His  Son ; " 
and  in  2  Cor.  viii.  9,  "Ye  know  the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus, 
that  being  rich  He  became  poor."  *  The  pre-existence  may 
be  viewed  as  the  pendant  and  complement  of  the  resurrec- 
tion. Through  the  resurrection  and  exaltation  Jesua  in  a 
sense,  according  to  Paul,  became  divine.  He  was  thereby, 
as  we  learned  from  a  notable  Pauline  text,  constituted  the 
Son  of  God  in  power.  But  divinity  in  the  proper  sense,  as 
distinct  from  apotheosis,  cannot  begin  to  be.  The  divine 
is  eternal  Therefore  He  who  was  man,  and  thereafter  was 
exalted  to  God's  right  hand,  must  have  been  with  God 
before  He  came  into  the  world.  So  the  apostle  seems  to 
have  reasoned,  if  we  may  view  the  pre-existence  theorem 
u  the  product  of  reasoning  rather  than  as  a  direct  re- 
velation.* 

It  does  not  appear  that  the  sinlessness  of  Jesus  raised  in 
Paul's  mind  any  questions  as  to  the  manner  of  His  coming 
into  the  world.  That  he  earnestly  believed  Jesus  to  be 
sinless  he  has  put  beyond  doubt  by  describing  Him  in  a 

*  Some  render  Wrix*"**  *'  was  poor,"  snppoiing  the  reference  to  be  to 
Christ's  habitual  condition  on  earth.  While  the  verb  by  itself  might  bear 
this  sense,  the  aoriat  exclude!  it,  as  implying  an  act  completed  at  a  giT«B 
point  of  time. 

'  Bornemann  says :  "The  thought  of  the  pre-existence  was  not  communi- 
cated snpematurally  to  the  apostles,  or  originated  by  Paul,  or  unfamiliar  ia 
that  age.  It  was  simply  the  natural  application  to  Jesus  of  an  attribute 
already  ascribed  to  Messiah  in  Jewish  theology.  Strange,  new,  and  peculiar 
as  the  idea  seems  to  us,  it  was  current  then  to  express  the  higher,  God- 
derived,  universal  significance  and  superhuman  perennial  worth  of  certain 
persons  and  things.  It  was  applied,  e.g.,to  Moses,  Enoch,  Adam,  the  taber- 
nade,  the  temple,  the  tables  of  the  law."  He  remarks  that  the  category 
strictly  applied  involves  some  peril  to  the  rpftl  humanity  of  Jesos,  Fwfe 
Unterrieht  tm  OkrisUntum,  p.  99f 


408  APOLOGETICS. 

well-known  text  as  **  Him  who  knew  no  rin." '     But  no« 

where  in  his  epistles  can  we  find  any  clear  reference  to  an 
immaculate  conception  or  supernatural  birth.  The  con- 
trary view,  that  Jesus  came  into  the  world  in  the  ordinary 
way,  has  been  supposed  to  be  indicated  by  the  words  "  made 
of  the  seed  of  David  according  to  the  flesh ; " '  but  the 
utmost  that  can  be  said  is  that  we  might  naturally  put 
that  construction  on  them  in  absence  of  information  to  the 
contrary.  The  expression  is  quite  reconcilable  with  the 
miraculous  birth.  To  the  latter  we  might  even  with  plausi- 
bility discover  a  positive  allusion  in  the  peculiar  phrase 
used  by  the  apostle  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  concern- 
ing Christ's  birth,  "  made  (or  born)  of  a  woman  " ;  •  but  it 
is  doubtful  if,  without  the  Gospels  in  our  hands,  it  would 
have  suggested  to  our  minds  birth  from  a  virgin. 

It  does  not  follow  from  the  absence  of  express  allusions 
to  the  topic  that  Paul's  mind  was  not  exercised  on  it,  any 
more  than  it  follows  from  the  absence  of  allusion  in  his 
epistles  to  many  of  the  most  memorable  facts  in  Christ's 
life  that  he  was  in  ignorance  concerning  them.*  Still  less 
should  we  be  justified  in  drawing  the  more  sweeping  infer- 
ence that,  for  the  whole  generation  to  which  Paul  belonged, 
the  problem  of  the  manner  of  Christ's  birth  had  no  exist- 
3nce.  The  best  evidence  that  Christians  were  thinking  on 
the  subject  is  to  be  found  in  the  narratives  at  the  beginning 
of  the  first  and  third  Gospela  The  histories  of  the  infancy 
in  Matthew  and  Luke  do  not  belong  to  the  original  Synopti- 

» a  Cor.  T.  11. 

*  Bom.  L  8.     So  Pfleiderer.  ■  G«L  ir.  L 

*  Menego2  tUnlu  that  Paul's  mind  was  not  occupied  with  the  qnestioB, 
and  that  it  conld  have  no  doctrinal  importance  for  him.  "  The  apostle  did 
not  dream  of  making  the  holiness  of  Christ  depend  on  the  mode  of  His  hirth. 
He  had  too  mnch  logic  for  that.  Whether  the  human  nature  of  Christ  pio- 
oeeded  from  a  woman  alone,  or  from  the  union  of  a  man  and  a  woman,  it 
would  make  no  difference  in  Paul's  ideas  as  to  the  heredity  of  sin.  In  the 
theology  of  the  apostle  the  holiness  of  Christ  is  related  to  another  origin  thaa 
to  the  mode  of  terrestrial  conception.  He  considered  the  birth  of  Christ  in 
•Tery  way  supematuraL  The  Incarnation  was  for  Him  a  miraculous  fael 
vkatarer  ita  mod*."— Xe  PieM  et  la  Redemption,  p.  182. 


JI8U8  LOBDl  409 

cal  tradition.     They  are  a  later  addition  prefixed  to  the 

evangelic  story  of  the  public  ministry  and  the  final  sufferings 
of  Jesus.  They  owe  their  presence  in  the  latest  redactions 
of  the  memoirs  of  the  Lord  to  the  desire  of  disciples  to 
know  all  that  could  be  known  concerning  Him  from  the 
beginning  of  His  earthly  life.  By  the  actual  story  they 
tell  concerning  the  birth  of  Jesus,  they  give  a  worthy  and 
acceptable  account  of  the  commencement  of  a  life  which 
believers  regarded  as  sinless.  They  embody  the  faith  in 
the  sinlessness  of  Jesus  in  the  form  of  a  history  of  His  birth 
from  a  virgin  through  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The 
history  is  not  the  creation  of  the  faith,  a  mere  legendary 
expression  of  the  belief  that  the  Lord  of  the  Church  was  a 
man  altogether  free  from  moral  taint,  but  it  came  late  in 
the  day  when  believers  in  a  sinless  Christ  began  to  wonder 
how  such  an  one  as  He  entered  into  human  life.  It  was 
welcome  to  them  as  a  worthy  account  of  the  birth  into 
this  time-world  of  the  Holy  One,  of  the  congruous  starting- 
point  of  a  life  that  knew  no  sin. 

Some  modern  theologians,  accepting  the  moral  miracle  of 
sinlessness,  reject  the  physical  miracle,  which,  according  to 
the  Gospels,  was  its  actual,  if  not  necessary,  presupposition ;  * 
or  at  least  treat  it  as  a  thing  of  no  religious  importance 
so  long  as  the  moral  miracle  is  believed  in.*  The  element 
of  truth  in  these  views  is  that  the  supernatural  birth  is  not 
an  end  in  itself,  but  only  a  means  to  an  end.  It  is  the 
symbol,  the  sinlessness  being  the  substance.  A  sinless 
Christ  is  the  proper  object  of  faith.  Under  what  conditions 
such  a  Christ  is  possible  is  a  very  important  question,  but 
it  belongs  to  theology  rather  than  to  religion.'     Yet  it  has 

»  80  Dr.  Edwin  Abbott     Vide  Onerimut,  Book  III.  par.  7. 

'  So  Schleiermacher,  Der  ChritUicht  Olaube^  Bd.  II.  pp.  67,  84,  8S. 
Vide  mj  Miraculous  Element  in  the  Gospels,  pp.  352,  853. 

'  BomemAnn  remarks :  "Th«  discnssion  of  tbe  presuppositions  of  the  penoB 
■ad  work  of  Christ  is  more  the  affair  of  theology  than  of  the  Christian 
religion.  Jesns  did  not  appear  that  we  men  might  scientifically  solve  the 
mystery  of  His  being,  bnt  that  He  might  offer  to  us  the  solution  of  the 
inctMMJ  riddles  of  haman  life." — Unterricht  mm  ChristeiOum,  p.  96. 


410  APOLooEnan 

to  be  remembered  tbat  faith  is  ever  in  a  state  cf  nnstabls 
equilibrium  while  the  supernatural  is  dealt  with  ecleeticallj; 
admitted  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  sphere,  denied  in  the 
physical  With  belief  in  the  virgin  birth  is  apt  to  go 
belief  in  the  virgin  life,  as  not  less  than  the  other  a  part  of 
the  veil  that  must  be  taken  away  that  the  true  Jesus  may 
be  seen  as  He  was — a  morally  defective  man,  better  than 
most,  but  not  perfectly  good.^ 

That  belief  in  the  virgin  life  must  go  there  can  be  little 
doubt,  if  we  are  to  carry  out  to  its  utmost  consequences  a 
purely  naturalistic  theory  of  the  universe.  A  sinless  man 
is  as  much  a  miracle  in  the  moral  world  as  a  virgin  birth 
is  a  miracle  in  the  physical  world.  If  we  are  to  hold  a 
speculative  view  of  the  universe  which  absolutely  excludes 
miracle,  then  we  must  be  content  with  a  Christianity  which 
consists  in  duly  appreciating  a  great  but  not  perfect  char- 
acter, or  cease  to  profess  Christianity  at  all  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  our  religious  nature 
we  insist  on  retaining  the  moral  miracle,  then  we  must 
provide  ourselves  with  a  theory  of  the  universe  wide  enough 
to  make  room  for  as  much  of  the  miraculous  element  as 
may  appear  to  the  wisdom  of  God  necessary  for  realising 
His  great  end  in  creating  and  sustaining  the  universe. 
Such  is  the  Christian  theory  of  the  universe,  as  expounded 
in  an  early  chapter  of  this  work*  It  regards  the  kingdom 
of  God  as  the  supreme  aim  of  Gk)d  in  creation  and  provi- 
dence. Whether  under  this  view  miracle  in  the  physical 
sphere  shall  actually  come  in,  and  to  what  extent,  remains 
to  be  seen,  but  it  certainly  may.  And  though  the  scientific 
spirit  indisposes  all  who  come  under  its  influence  to  believe 
that  miracles  actually  happen,  it  has  no  right  in  the  name 
of  science  to  negative  the  possibility  of  their  happening. 
It  has  been  shown  by  a  master  both  in  science  and  in 
Christian  philosophy  how  that  possibility  may  be  provided 

t  So  Martineaii,  Se4Mt  of  Authority,  p.  6(1,  in  oppodtiott  to  old  orthodei 
Bocinianum. 
'  Book  I.  ohap.  ii. 


JESUS  LORD.  411 

for  without  in  the  least  disturbing  the  laws  of  the  actual 
universe,  viis.  by  finding  the  sphere  within  which  the 
miraculous  Power  immediately  works  in  the  ultimate 
elements  which  for  the  actual  universe  remain  unchanged, 
though  not  in  themselves  unchangeable. 
Let  us  hear  Lotze  on  this  point  ^ — 

*  The  closed  and  hard  circle  of  mechanical  necessity  is  not 
immediately  accessible  to  the  miracle-working  fiat,  nor  does 
it  need  to  be,  but  the  inner  nature  of  that  which  obeys  its 
laws  is  not  determined  by  it  but  by  the  meaning  (Sinn)  of 
the  world.  This  is  the  open  place  on  which  a  power  that 
commands  in  the  name  of  this  Meaning  can  exert  its  influ- 
ence, and  if  under  this  command  the  inner  condition  of  the 
elements,  the  magnitudes  of  their  relation  and  their  opposi- 
tion to  each  other,  become  altered,  the  necessity  of  the 
mechanical  course  of  the  world  must  unfold  this  new  state 
into  a  miraculous  appearance,  not  through  suspension  but 
through  strict  maintenance  of  its  general  laws." 

The  bias  of  faith  in  the  present  time  is  to  make  itself 
entirely  independent  of  the  miraculous.  But  the  thing 
is  impossible.  In  this  connection  the  position  taken  up 
by  such  writers  as  Schleiermacher  and  Dr.  K  Abbott  is 
peculiarly  interesting,  as  showing  what  faith  demands  in 
the  way  of  the  miraculous,  even  in  the  case  of  those  whose 
general  attitude  towards  that  element  is  one  of  scepticism 
and  aversion.  They  must,  at  all  hazards,  have  a  sinless 
Christ,  a  man  in  whom  God  was  immanent  in  a  unique 
superlative  degree,  and  this,  as  already  remarked,  is  a  moral 
miracle.  Of  course,  one  can  understand  how  believing  men, 
in  sympathy  with  the  anti- miraculous  spirit  of  8cience,should 
endeavour  to  make  this  solitary  phenomenon  iu  the  history 
of  mankind  appear  as  natural  as  possible.  That  means 
attempting  to  bring  faith  in  an  ideally-perfect  man  into 
line  with  the  doctrine  of  evolution.  Fruitful  suggestions 
towards  a  solution  of  this  problem  must  ever  be  welcome. 
One  is  to  regard  Christ,  like  all  other  great  originators,  as 

*  MUrokodmut,  Bd.  II.  p^  54,  Eng.  tr.  p.  iSh 


412  APOLOGETICS. 

a  "  sociological  v^ariation,"  the  most  remarkable  of  all,  and 
as  such  unaccountable/  The  most  recent  attempt  to  state 
"  the  relation  of  evolution  to  the  idea  of  the  Christ "  is  that 
of  Professor  Le  Conte,  whose  line  of  thought  is  to  this  effect 
"  As  organic  evolution  reached  its  goal  and  completion  in 
man,  so  human  evolution  must  reach  its  goal  and  comple- 
tion in  the  ideal  man,  i.e.  the  Christ."  To  finding  in  Christ 
the  goal  of  human  evolution,  the  realisation  of  the  human 
ideal,  it  cannot  properly  be  objected  that  the  goal,  the  ideal 
should  appear  at  the  end  of  the  course  of  evolution.  This 
holds  good  of  animal  evolution,  but  not  of  human  evolution, 
and  for  this  reason,  that  in  the  latter  process  a  new  factor 
comes  into  play,  viz.  "  the  conscious  voluntary  co-operation 
of  the  human  spirit  in  the  work  of  its  own  evolution."  The 
method  of  this  new  factor  consists  in  the  formation,  and 
especially  in  the  voluntary  pursuit,  of  ideals.  Therefore 
the  ideal  in  this  case  must  come  either  in  imagination  or 
in  fact,  preferably  in  fact,  in  the  course  of  the  evolutionary 
process,  and  not  at  the  end.  **  At  the  end  the  whole  human 
race,  drawn  upward  by  this  ideal,  must  reach  the  fulness 
of  the  stature  of  the  Christ."  * 

This  is  an  inviting  train  of  reasoning,  but  not  above 
criticism.  Not  to  speak  of  the  objections  likely  to  be  raised 
by  a  naturalistic  philosophy  to  which  it  is  an  axiom,  that 
the  idea  never  realises  itself  in  individuals,  but  only  in  the 
totality  of  individuals,'  there  is  the  more  obvious  objec- 
tion anticipated  by  the  author  himself  that  all  ideals  are 
relative  and  temporary,  that  "ideals  are  but  milestones 
which  we  put  successively  behind  us  while  we  press  on  to 
another."  How  then  did  it  come  about  that  the  absolute 
moral  ideal  appeared  in  this  world  so  long  ago  ?  It  was  a 
miracle.  To  this  statement  the  author  above  referred  to 
would  not  probably  object.     His  theory  provides  for  the 

I  Vide  OB  this  my  Miraevloug  Element  m  the  GctpeU,  pp.  S48,  849,  witk 

tlM  references  to  literatare  bearing  on  the  subject. 

*  Evolution  and  Us  RtUUion  to  Religious  Thought^  Snd  dL  ppb  860-864 

*  Vide  Ullmann,  Die  SUndlosigkeit  Jesu,  p.  159. 


PAUL.  415 

miraonloiu.  A  goal  in  eyolution,  as  he  yiews  it,  is  "  not 
only  a  completion  of  one  stage,  but  also  the  beginning  of 
another  and  higher  stage — on  a  higher  plane  of  life  with 
new  and  higher  capacities  and  powers  unimaginable  from 
any  lower  plane."  Applied  to  Christ  this  implies  that  He 
Himself  was  miraculous,  and  that  with  Him  came  into  the 
world  "  new  powers  and  properties  unimaginable  from  the 
human  point  of  view,  and  therefore  to  us  seemingly  super- 
natural, ic  above  our  nature,"  * 


CHAPTER  VL 

PAUU 

Literature. — Baur,  Paulus  der  Apostel  Jesu  Christi; 
Renan,  Zes  Apdtre^  and  St.  Paul ;  Holsten,  Zum  Evangelium 
des  Petrus  und  des  Paulus ;  Pfleiderer,  Paulinismus  ;  Eeuss, 
Theologie  Ch/retienne  (translated)  ;  Sabatier,  Z.  Apdtre  Paul 
(translated);  Farrar,  The  Life  and  Work  of  St.  Paul; 
Matheson,  The^^ritual  Development  of  St.  Paul. 

The  importance  of  the  Apostle  Paul  to  Christianity  is 
universally  acknowledged.  The  tendency,  indeed,  alike  in 
orthodox  and  in  heterodox  schools  of  theology,  has  been 
rather  to  exaggerate  than  to  under-estimate  his  significance. 
On  the  Tubingen  theory,  e.g.,  Christianity  would  have  been  a 
failure  but  for  PauL  From  the  point  of  view  of  Dr.  Baur, 
while  it  was  a  vital  condition  of  the  new  religion  getting 
started  on  its  career  that  faith  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
should  somehow  take  possession  of  the  minds  of  His  dis- 
ciples, yet  that  was  not  enough.  Before  Christianity  could 
be  said  to  be  fairly  on  the  march,  it  was  necessary  that  the 
two  opposite  principles  which  met  in  the  person  of  Jesus 
in  immediate  unity  should  find  adequate  representatives; 
that  there  should  be  some  adopting  as  their  watchword : 

*  Evciittitm,  ato.,  p.  864.  For  an  attempt  to  bring  faith  in  the  Incarnation 
Into  lino  with  ETolntim,  vide  Lvx  MuncU,  Essay  Y. 


414  APOLOGETICS. 

Jesus  the  Christ  promised  to  the  fathers,  and  others  wboj 
while  also  believing  Jesus  to  be  the  Christ,  should  inscribe 
on  their  banner  the  glorious  principle — Christianity  the 
universal  religion.  Given  these  the  new  religion  was  sure 
of  a  great  future,  in  accordance  with  the  historical  law  of 
development  by  antagonism.  According  to  Dr.  Baur  there 
was  no  risk  of  the  narrower,  national  view  failing  to  find 
advocates  numerous  if  not  influential  It  might  be  taken 
for  granted  that  the  average  Jew  believing  Jesus  to  be 
the  Messiah  would  be  willing  to  change  only  as  little  as 
possible,  would,  in  fact,  remain  as  he  had  been,  simply 
adding  to  his  former  beliefs  and  practices  the  conviction 
that  in  Jesus  the  Messiah  had  come,  and  fellowship  with 
those  who  shared  that  conviction  with  himselfl  The 
difficulty  and  uncertainty  would  all  be  in  the  other  direc- 
tion :  to  find  one  or  more  worthy  representatives  of  the 
universalistic  spirit  of  Jesus.  By  the  nature  of  the  case 
they  must  be  few ;  for  they  must  be  superior  men,  rising 
above  the  average  level  in  genius,  earnestness,  force  of 
mind  and  character,  men  belonging  to  the  aristocracy  of 
humanity,  the  number  of  which  is  always  limited.  What 
if  such  rare  exceptional  persons,  capable  of  being  vehicles 
of  the  universalistic  idea,  should  not  turn  up  ?  The  risk 
is  as  real  as  it  would  be  fatal ;  it  will  be  well  if  the  spirit 
of  universalism  shall  find  so  much  as  one  solitary  effective 
representative.  In  absence  of  a  living  Providence,  you 
cannot  be  quite  sure  that  even  one  shall  be  forthcoming, 
though  it  is  open  to  the  naturalistic  theologian  to  allay  his 
anxiety  on  that  score  by  the  consoling  reflection  that  at 
every  world-crisis  the  needed  hero  does  make  his  appear- 
ance, not  sent  by  God  indeed,  but  produced  by  the  uncon- 
scious Forces  at  work  in  the  great  universe.  Fortunately 
in  the  case  of  nascent  Christianity  the  needed  hero  did 
appear  in  due  time.  And,  of  course,  he  was  an  epoch- 
making  person,  being  nothing  less  than  the  man  through 
whom  the  personal  work  of  Jesus  was  saved  from  being  an 
abortive  attempt  at  the  establishment  of  a  new  religion. 


PAUL.  415 

Snoh  in  substance  is  the  view  taken  by  the  famous 
founder  of  the  Tubingen  school  of  criticism  as  to  the  valu« 
of  Paul  as  a  factor  in  the  origination  of  historic  Christianity.* 
It  errs  on  the  side  of  exaggeration.  Dr.  Baur  makes  too 
much  of  PauL  God  could  have  done  even  without  him, 
and  Christianity  as  a  world-religion  would  have  got  started 
on  its  career  even  though  he  had  remained  to  the  end  of 
his  days  a  blasphemer  and  a  persecutor.  It  is  without 
doubt  a  just  view  that  a  Christianity  not  universal  in  spirit 
would  have  been  an  unfaithful  reflection  of  the  spirit  of 
Jesus,  and  that  such  a  Christianity  would  have  had  no 
chance  of  attaining  to  permanence  and  power.  But  it  is 
not  the  fact  that  Paul  was  the  sole  exponent  of  univer- 
salism.  There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  there  was  a 
party  in  the  Palestine  Church  represented  by  such  men  as 
Stephen  and  Barnabas,  which,  quite  independently  of  Paul's 
influence  and  antecedently  to  his  conversion,  understood 
and  sympathised  with  the  humanistic  tendency  of  Christ's 
teaching.'  And  if  we  inquire  into  the  source  of  this 
Palestinian  universalism,  we  cannot  point  to  any  more 
likely  origin  than  the  preaching  of  the  eleven.  Why 
should  it  be  assumed  that  the  original  apostles  were  the 
narrow  Judaistic  bigots  it  suits  the  exigencies  of  the 
Tubingen  theory  to  make  them  ?  It  is  only  by  straining 
and  special  pleading  that  the  New  Testament  literature 
can  be  made  to  yield  evidence  in  favour  of  such  an 
assumption.'  The  presumption  is  all  the  other  way. 
It  was  not  in  vain,  surely,  that  Peter  and  John  and 
their  companions  had  been  with  Jesus  for  years !  If 
the  story  of  the  Acts  can  be  trusted  at  all,  they  had 
imbibed  during  that  time  somewhat  of  the  moral  courage 

^  Vid«  Banr's  work,  Pauliu  der  Apoatel  Jesu  Chrieti,  and  Bd.  L  of  bii 
Ottchichte  der  Christlichen  Kirche, 

»  Vide  Weizsacker,  Das  Apoatolisehe  Zeitatter,  p.  487  (referenoes  «re  to 
the  first  edition). 

'  The  passage  chiefly  relied  on  for  this  purpose  la  QaL  iL  11-21,  which 
tsllB  of  a  collision  between  Paul  and  Peter  at  Antioch  in  reference  to  tht 
behaviMD  c'  the  latter  towards  Gentile  conrerta. 


116  APOLOGEniGB. 

of  their  Master.'  Why  should  we  be  incredulouB  m 
to  their  attaining  also  to  some  insight  into  and  apprecia- 
tion of  His  world-wide  sympathies  ?  In  both  respects 
they  might  come  short  of  Paul ;  there  is  reason  to  believe 
they  did.  From  all  that  we  can  learn  their  universalism 
was  of  a  very  mild  type,  compared  with  the  passionate 
devotion  of  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles  to  a  gospel  for  all 
mankind  on  equal  terms.  But  it  was  sufficient  at  least  to 
help  them  to  remember  sayings  of  the  Master  of  univer- 
salistic  scope,  and  make  them  not  disinclined  to  repeat 
these  when  communicating  their  reminiscences  to  the  infant 
Church.  Towards  such  sayings  most  of  their  audience 
might  be  like  the  wayside  hearers  of  Christ's  parable ;  but 
there  were  some,  witness  Stephen  and  Barnabas,  who  sup- 
plied the  good  ground  needful  for  bringing  forth  a  univer- 
salism of  a  more  pronounced  type  than  that  even  of  thci 
preachers. 

The  foregoing  remarks  are  not,  of  course,  to  be  taken 
as  disparagement  of  Paul,  but  as  a  protest  against  a 
widespread  tendency  to  make  him  the  real  author  of 
Christianity.*  While  resolutely  refusing  him  this  honour, 
however,  we  must  earnestly  acknowledge  his  very  great 
importance  as  the  interpreter  and  eloquent  preacher  of  what 
we  believe  to  be  the  true  mind  of  Jesus  concerning  the 
destination  of  the  gospel.  One  cannot  too  much  admire 
the  providence  of  God  which  raised  him  up  to  be  the 
apostle  of  Gentile  Christianity,  and  the  grace  of  God  which 
prepared  him  for  discharging  the  duties  of  that  high  voca- 
tion with  the  greatest  possible  efficiency.  He  was,  as  we 
know  from  his  own  letters,  beforehand  a  most  unlikely 
instrument  A  Pharisee  of  the  Pharisees,  a  pupil  of  the 
Rabbis,  an  intense  fanatical  zealot  for  the  Jewish  law  and 
traditions — ^how  improbable  that  such  a  man  would  ever 
become  a  convert,  not  to  speak  of  an  enthusiastic  preacher, 
of  a  religion  which  was  in  spirit  and  genius  anti-pharisaic, 
anti-rabbinical,  anti-legal !  Likelier  far  that  he  will  become 
*  Aoto  iv.  Uk  *  So,  for  example,  Pfleiderer  in  Urchri«t«Uhmm. 


PAUL.  417 

the  champion  of  the  old  religion  of  his  fathers,  the  forlorn 
hope  of  Judaism,  the  Maccabseus  of  a  new  time  waging  an 
uncompromising  life-loug  war  against  all  defections  from 
the  national  faith  and  customs.  That,  indeed,  was  the 
career  he  chose  for  himself,  and  had  actually  entered  on. 
But  God's  plan  for  his  life  was  different,  and  so  Saul,  the 
zealot  for  Jewish  law  and  persecutor  of  Christians,  became 
a  preacher  of  the  faith  he  once  destroyed. 

It  was  a  great  spiritual  transformation,  and  one  naturally 
asks  how  it  came  about.  By  what  means  was  this  Pharisaic 
zealot  and  bitter  opponent  of  Christianity  changed  into  a 
Christian,  and  stick  a  Christian ;  not  merely  believing  that 
Jesus  was  the  Christ,  but  espousing  with  all  the  enthusiasm 
of  a  passionate  temperament,  and  all  the  logical  consistency 
of  a  powerful  intellect,  the  great  idea  of  a  gospel  for  the 
world  ;  treating  the  law,  once  everything  to  him,  as  nothing, 
and  insisting  that  in  Christ  is  no  distinction  of  Jew  and 
Glentile,  but  only  a  new  humanity  for  which  differences  of 
race  have  no  longer  any  meaning  ?  This  is  one  of  the 
hard  problems  for  those  who  undertake  to  give  a  purely 
naturalistic  account  of  the  origins  of  Christianity.  The 
attempts  at  solution  which  they  have  offered  are  based  on 
the  familiar  axiom  :  extremes  meet.^  It  is  not  at  all 
surprising,  we  are  told,  that  a  man  who  has  gone  to  one 
extreme  should  eventually,  and  it  may  be  suddenly,  swing 
round  to  the  other  extreme ;  nor  need  we  wonder  if  in 
connection  with  the  excitement  accompanying  a  very 
intense  experience,  such  a  man  should  see  visions  and  hear 
voices  corresponding  to  the  nature  of  the  change  In  con- 
viction he  is  undergoing. 

All    attempts  at  explaining  Panl'i   conversion  without 

^  Banr  contents  limself  with  aaserting  in  general  temiB  the  possibility  of 
the  great  moral  revolution  coming  about  in  a  natural  way.  Vidt  Der  Apoatd 
Patiius,  p.  86.  Benan  oharacteristically  finds  the  problem  quite  simple,  and 
explains  the  conversion  of  Paul  on  the  same  offhand  jaunty  method  we 
hare  seen  him  apply  to  the  resurrection  of  Jeeua.  VicU  Les  ApCtret,  p.  188. 
The  most  elaborate  attempt  at  a  naturalistic  explanation  of  the  event  ia  thai 
of  Holsten  in  Zvm  Evangdium  da  Petrut  tind  des  Paultu. 

2d 


418  APOLOGETICS. 

recognising  the  hand  of  God  in  it  must  be  futile.  In  the 
last  resort  we  are  obliged  to  fall  back  on  the  apostle's  own 
devout  language  and  say,  It  pleased  God  to  reveal  His  Son 
in  him.*  But  it  is  not  necessary  to  magnify  the  miracle 
of  grace  so  as  to  make  it  appear  a  magical  triumph  over  a 
psychological  impossibility.  In  other  words,  we  must  not 
assume  that  it  was  in  the  highest  degree  improbable  that 
one  such  as  Paul  had  been  before  his  conversion  should 
become  such  as  we  know  him  to  have  been  after  his  con- 
version ;  that  so  intense  a  Pharisee  and  legalist  should  ever 
become  so  eager  an  advocate  of  a  religion  utterly  opposed 
to  Pharisaism  and  legalism.  On  the  surface  the  improb- 
ability of  such  a  change  appears,  as  already  indicated,  very 
great.  But  looking  below  the  surface  one  can  see  that  the 
catastrophe  was  not  so  sudden  or  unprepared  as  it  seems. 
The  adage,  extremes  meet,  does  not  explain  everything,  but 
it  counts  for  something.  The  very  intensity  of  Paul's 
Pharisaism  tended  to  make  him  a  Christian.  With  a  little 
moral  earnestness  a  man  might  remain  a  Pharisee  all  his 
days,  but  with  a  great  consuming  earnestness,  a  passion  for 
righteousness,  one  is  likely  to  go  through  to  the  other  side 
of  Pharisaism,  into  what  Carlyle,  speaking  of  Luther,  called 
the  more  credible  hypothesis  of  salvation  by  free  grace. 

That  the  great  change  in  Paul's  religious  attitude  was 
not  without  preparation,  and  in  particular  that  his  experi- 
ences as  a  Pharisee  contributed  to  bring  it  about,  is  not  a 
matter  of  mere  conjecture.  His  own  letters  contain  some 
very  significant  autobiographical  hints  bearing  on  the  point 
Thus  he  tells  us  that  while  he  was  earnestly  endeavouring 
to  fulfil  the  requirements  of  the  law,  his  attention  was 
arrested  at  a  certain  stage  by  the  tenth  commandment  of 
the  Decalogue  :  Thou  shalt  not  covet,  and  that  through  this 
prohibition,  directed  against  inward  disposition,  as  distinct 
from  outward  act,  he  attained  to  a  new  sense  of  moral 
shortcoming.*  The  fact  is  in  various  ways  very  instructive. 
It  shows  for  one  thing  that  even  then  Saul  of  Tarsus  waa 
>  OdL  i.  IC  •  Bon.  vtt.  t. 


PAUL.  419 

BO  vulgar  Pharisee,  but  a  man  of  quite  exceptional  moral 
sensitiveness.  The  votaries  of  a  religion  of  ostentation, 
who  did  all  their  works  to  be  seen  of  men,  did  not  troubU 
themselves  about  sins  of  thought  and  feeling,  so  long  as  all 
was  seemly  and  fair  without.  Christ's  indictment  of  His 
Pharisaic  contemporaries  turned  largely  on  this  very  feature 
of  their  character.  **  Ye  make  clean,"  said  He,  "  the  out- 
side of  the  cup.**  Their  righteousness,  in  His  view,  was 
an  affair  of  acting,  hypocrisy.  That  could  never  have  been 
said  of  SauL  He  began,  indeed,  at  the  outside,  and  was 
careful  to  make  all  right  there.  But  his  oversight  of  evil 
within  was  due  not  to  obtuseness  of  conscience,  but  chiefly 
to  preoccupation.  How  tender  and  true  his  moral  senti- 
ments were  appeared  from  the  serious  view  he  took  of 
the  evil  of  selfish  desires  when  he  became  awtire  of  their 
presence  in  his  heart. 

As  Saul  differed  from  the  ordinary  Pharisee  by  his 
capacity  of  being  distressed  on  account  of  sin  within,  so 
the  actual  distress  evoked  by  the  precept  against  coveting 
had  much  to  do  with  his  final  abandonment  of  Pharisaism. 
When  through  that  precept  he  became  aware  that  there 
was  a  whole  world  of  sin  within  of  which  he  had  hitherto 
remained  unconscious,  the  beginning  of  the  end  had  come. 
The  suspicion  could  not  but  arise  that  righteousness  on  the 
method  of  legalism  was  impossible.  That  it  did  arise  we 
know  from  another  autobiographical  hint  in  Paul's  letters : 
"  When  the  commandment  came,  sin  revived,  and  I  died."  * 
"  I  died,"  that  is,  hope  died ;  hope  of  salvation  on  the 
Pharisaic  programme  of  self-righteousness.  This  was  not 
Christianity,  it  was  only  despair  of  Pharisaism ;  but  as 
such  it  was  a  decisive  step  onwards  towards  the  new 
standing  ground.  It  was  the  everlasting  no  of  incipient 
unbelief  in  self-righteousness  preparing  for  the  everlasting 
yes  of  faith  in  salvation  by  grace.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed 
tha^,  the  everlasting  no  was  pronounced  at  once,  frankly 
and  unreluctantly.    Pharisaism  dies  hard.     Beligioos  pride 

*  Som.  TiL8. 


420  APOLOOEnOB. 

is  not  easily  broken ;  only  in  noble  truthful  natures  can  it 

be  broken  at  alL  How  sorely  against  the  grain  of  human 
nature  it  goes  to  renounce  the  boast  of  virtue,  and  to  acknow- 
ledge that  all  one's  painful,  protracted,  laborious  efforts  to 
build  up  character,  and  quite  successfully  so  far  as  reputa- 
tion is  concerned,  have  been  vain  1  The  wild  colt  will  for 
a  time  "  kick  against  the  pricks  "  before  he  is  fairly  broken 
in.  The  happy  phrase  put  into  Christ's  mouth  by  the 
historian  of  the  Acts,  in  the  third  recital  of  the  story  of 
Saul's  conversion,*  hits  off  exactly  the  situation.  There  are 
rising  convictions  destined  to  conquer,  but  meantime  stub- 
bornly resisted.  The  Pharisaic  fanatic  was  kicking  against 
the  pricks  at  the  very  time  he  was  persecuting  the  followers 
of  Jesus ;  for  a  man  is  never  so  violent  against  an  opinion 
as  when  he  is  half-convinced  it  is  true,  and  yet  is  unwilling 
to  receive  it.  And  in  passing  it  may  be  remarked  that 
Saul's  exceeding  madness  against  Christians,  taken  in  con- 
nection with  his  waning  faith  in  Pharisaism,  implies  that 
Christianity  appeared  to  him  during  the  persecuting  period 
as  the  rival  of  legal  righteousness.  Christianity,  as  he 
viewed  it  in  these  days,  must  have  been  something  more 
than  a  variety  of  Judaism  having  for  its  distinctive  tenet 
the  belief  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ,  and  in  all  other 
respects  conforming  to  existing  Jewish  opinion  and  practice. 
Had  it  been  no  more  than  this  it  would  have  been  difiBcult 
to  understand  what  there  could  be  in  the  Christian  com- 
munity to  provoke  such  bitter  hostility  in  Paul's  mind. 
The  fact  that  he  persecuted  the  Church  is  the  best  proof 
that  in  the  bosom  of  that  society  a  new  religion  had 
appeared  destined  to  alter  much.  A  sure  instinct  told  the 
ardent  young  Pharisee  that  there  was  something  that  boded 
danger  to  the  religion  of  the  law,  latent  possibly  as  yet, 
and  only  partially  comprehended  by  the  adherents  of  the 
new  sect,  but  certain  to  become  operative  more  and  more 
in  such  a  way  as  to  show  that  the  martjnr  Stephen  had 
truly  divined  the  genius  of  the  nascent  faith.  But  for  this 
*  Acts  zxri  14. 


PAUL.  421 

he  would  have  let  the  Christians  alone.    That  they  believed 

a  crucified  man  to  be  the  Christ  would  not  have  provoked 
his  ire.  At  most  he  would  have  regarded  their  belief 
simply  as  an  absurd  opinion.  It  was  the  spirit  of  the  new 
religion,  its  anti-legal  undercurrent,  which  made  it  for  him 
at  once  a  source  of  fascination  and  an  object  of  fear  and 
hatred. 

When  a  crisis  occurs  in  a  life  of  great  moral  intensity 
the  issues  involved  are  wont  to  be  very  radical  That  Saul 
of  Tarsus,  even  with  his  new  insight  into  sin  and  his 
despair  of  attaining  unto  righteousness,  should  become  a 
Christian  was  not  a  matter  of  course ;  but  that  in  case  he 
became  a  Christain  his  Christianity  would  be  very  thorough- 
going might  be  taken  for  granted.  It  is  not  difiBcult  to 
determine  what  the  leading  characteristics  of  his  altered 
religious  attitude  would  be.  He  would  see  clearly  that  the 
seat  of  true  righteousness  was  in  the  heart,  and  not  in  the 
outward  act.  There  would  be  a  great  change  in  his  way  of 
regarding  the  Jewish  law.  The  veneration  for  it  he  had 
learned  in  his  father's  house,  and  in  the  Eabbinical  schools, 
would  give  place  to  a  feeling  that  might  easily  be  mistaken 
for  contempt  The  convert  would  say  to  himself :  Whatever 
that  law  is  good  for,  and  that  it  serves  some  good  end  I 
must  believe,  for  God  is  its  author,  it  is  not  that  way  a 
man  can  reach  righteousness  and  salvation.  Out  of  some 
such  feeling  grew  the  doctrine  concerning  the  law  formu- 
lated in  later  years,  that  its  real  God-appointed  function 
was  to  provoke  into  activity  the  sinful  principle  in  human 
nature,  so  to  give  the  knowledge  of  sin  and  prepare  the 
sinner  for  receiving  God's  grace  in  Jesus  Christ.  Along 
with  this  contempt  for  the  law  as  a  way  to  righteousness 
would  go  loss  of  respect  for  Jewish  prerogative.  Jewish 
pride  would  pass  away  with  that  on  which  it  fed.  If  by  all 
our  efiforts  to  keep  the  law  we  cannot  commend  ourselves 
to  God,  why  should  we  think  that  Jews  are  more  to  God 
than  Gentiles  ?  That  we  have  a  God-given  law  is  a  poor 
ground  of  boasting ;  the  grand  fact  about  us  all,  Jew  and 


422  APOLOGETICa 

Gentile  alike,  Is  that  we  are  all  sinners  in  God's  sight 
Here  was  Pauline  universalism  in  germ.  Once  more,  the 
new  religious  attitude  would  involve  an  altered  view  of 
man's  relation  to  God.  According  to  the  old  view,  the 
relation  was  a  purely  legal  one  :  God  made  demands  with 
which  men  were  bound  under  heavy  penalties  to  comply. 
But  with  the  great  crisis  would  come  insight  into  the 
blessed  truth  that  God's  attitude  towards  men  is  not  that 
of  One  who  simply  makes  demands,  but  before  all  things 
that  of  One  who  gives.  The  idea  of  divine  exaction  would 
retire  into  the  background,  and  the  idea  of  divitie  grace 
would  come  to  the  front.  It  was  not  a  novel  idea.  It  was 
as  old  as  the  prophets,  as  old  one  may  say  as  Moses,  though 
the  long  dreary  night  of  legalism  had  caused  it  to  be  almost 
wholly  forgotten.  It  only  needed  to  be  rediscovered,  and 
Saul  in  the  time  of  his  spiritual  tribulation,  when  the 
words,  "  Thou  shalt  not  covet,"  were  ringing  in  his  ears, 
was  in  a  state  of  mind  favourable  for  making  the  discovery. 
God's  grace  was  his  only  chance  of  salvation,  his  only 
refuge  from  despair.  How  sweet  to  one  in  such  a  forlorn 
condition  Jeremiah's  oracle  of  the  new  covenant  with  the 
law  written  on  the  heart,  or  the  new  name  for  God,  "Father," 
recently  coined  by  Jesus  and  used  by  Him  to  proclaim  a 
gospel  of  divine  mercy  towards  even  "  publicans  and 
sinners  "  1  We  need  not  doubt  that  both  these  aids  ta  the 
new  yet  most  ancient  way  of  thinking  concerning  God  were 
available  to  Saul  in  his  time  of  need.  Bunyan  in  his  hour 
of  darkness  searched  the  whole  Scriptures  in  quest  of  texts 
that  might  encourage  even  him  to  hope  in  God's  mercy. 
Why  should  Saul  in  despair  of  salvation  by  self-righteous- 
ness not  be  equally  on  the  alert  to  discover  texts  like: 
"  There  is  forgiveness  with  Thee,"  and  "  I  will  put  my  law 
in  their  inward  parts"?  And  it  is  surely  not  a  violent 
supposition  that  some  stray  samples  of  the  new  Christian 
dialect  reached  the  ears  of  this  remarkable  pupil  of  the 
Eabbis,  and  that  some  such  words  as  those  in  which  Jesna 
thanked  His  Father  that  the  things  of  the  kingdom  were 


PAUL.  42S 

revealed  to  babes,  while  hid  from  the  wise  and  understand- 
ing, brought  comfort  to  his  heart  in  the  time  of  his  distress ! 
The  forementioned  elements  of  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness of  Paul  are  all  fair  deductions  from  what  we  know 
from  himself  concerning  his  state  of  mind  antecedent  to  his 
conversion.  They  probably  all  entered  into  his  new  reli- 
gious attitude  from  the  day  he  became  a  Christian,  though 
all  their  implications  might  not  be  immediately  apparent  to 
his  view.  If  the  general  characteristics  of  that  attitude 
have  been  correctly  determined,  it  will  be  seen  that  Paul's 
Christianity  was  essentially  the  same  as  that  of  Christ 
For  him,  as  for  the  Great  Master,  it  was  the  religion  of 
the  spirit  as  opposed  to  ritualism,  the  religion  of  faith  as 
opposed  to  legalism,  the  religion  of  grace  as  opposed  to 
self-righteousness,  and  the  religion  of  humanity  as  opposed 
to  Jewish  exclusiveness.  But  Paul's  Christianity  was  not 
merely  a  religion  like  that  of  Christ :  it  was  a  religion  of 
which  Christ  was  the  central  object.  The  most  vital  and 
specific  article  of  his  creed  was  the  doctrine  of  Christ's 
atoning  death  and  of  justification  through  faith  therein. 
It  does  not  come  within  the  scope  of  an  apologetic  treatise 
to  enter  into  a  detailed  explanation  or  defence  of  that 
doctrine.  Its  general  import,  which  is  all  that  here  con- 
cerns us,  is  sufficiently  clear.  Paul,  the  Christian,  believed 
in  a  righteousness  of  God  freely  given  to  all  who  believed 
in  Jesus  as  crucified  for  their  salvation.  He  put  his  con- 
ception in  compact  form  when  he  spoke  of  the  sinless  Jesus 
as  made  sin  for  us  "  that  we  might  be  made  the  righteous- 
ness of  God  in  Him."  *  This  righteousness  of  God  in 
Pauline  dialect  is  a  synonym  for  pardon.  It  does  not 
cover  the  whole  ground  of  a  sinner's  spiritual  need.  What 
of  the  heart  righteousness  which  the  quondam  Pharisee  had 
discovered  to  be  necessary  ?  A  very  important  part  of  the 
apologetic  side  of  Paul's  system  of  thought,  as  expounded 
in  his  four  great  Epistles,  is  that  which  has  for  its  object  to 
show  that  the  ethical  interest,  or  personal  holiness,  is  not 
^  S  Cor.  T.  21. 


424  APOLOOSnOB. 

compromised  by  his  doctrine  of  justification.  That  end  ia 
accomplished  by  what  has  been  not  inaptly  called  his 
"  faith-mysticism,"  that  is  to  say,  his  conception  of  believers 
in  a  Christ  who  died  for  them,  as  also  dying  with  Him  and 
rising  to  a  new  life.  The  latter  aspect  is  not  less  essential 
to  Paul's  theory  than  the  former. 

There  are  no  autobiographical  hints  in  Paul's  letters  as 
to  the  genesis  of  his  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  in 
Christ's  atoning  death,  such  as  those  which  help  us  to 
understand  his  loss  of  faith  in  justification  by  law.  We 
are  left  to  our  own  conjectures.  Several  possible  sources 
of  the  great  thought  suggest  themselves.  Doubtless  the 
faith  of  the  first  disciples  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ  though 
crucified  would  have  its  own  influence.  Then  the  Pharisee's 
despair  of  self-achieved  righteousness  would  powerfully 
contribute  to  prepare  his  mind  for  the  reception  of  the 
new  idea.  For  though  he  had  lost  confidence  in  his  own 
righteousness,  he  did  not  lose  the  craving  for  righteousness, 
or  the  urgent  sense  of  its  indispensableness.  He  felt  all 
along  that  righteousness  must  be  forthcoming  somehow. 
From  that  feeling  to  faith  in  an  objective  "  imputed " 
righteousness  of  God  was  indeed  a  long  step,  though  it 
looked  in  that  direction.  It  has  been  thought  that  the 
theology  of  the  Jewish  schools  gave  the  anxious  inquirer 
the  hint  out  of  which  his  doctrine  of  justification  was 
developed.  The  Jews  believed  that  the  surplus  merits  of 
the  fathers  might  be  imputed  to  less  holy  men,  and  that 
the  sufferings  of  the  righteous  could  atone  for  the  sins  of 
the  unrighteous.  They  did  not,  strange  to  say,  apply  the 
theory  to  the  Messiah,  in  whose  case  one  would  expect  it 
to  be  best  exemplified.  But  the  theory,  once  broached, 
might  easily  be  extended  in  that  direction.  A  suffering 
Christ,  such  as  Christians  believed  in,  was  in  harmony  with 
Hebrew  prophecy,  if  not  with  Eabbinical  traditions.  He, 
like  others,  might  suffer  unjustly,  and  His  sufferings  might 
atone  for  the  sins  of  His  people.  One  does  not  care  to 
think  of  the  great  apostle  as  indebted  to  the  Babbis  for  any 


PAUL.  425 

parts  of  his  system,  and  yet  it  is  not  inconceivable  that  he 
may  have  "  spoiled  the  Egyptians,"  and  borrowed  from  his 
former  masters  ideas  capable  of  being  made  serviceable  tea 
faith  which  was  to  be  the  destruction  of  Eabbinism.* 

With  more  confidence  we  may  suppose  that  the  resurrec- 
tion of  Jesus,  boldly  procledmed  by  the  first  believers,  and 
put  beyond  doubt  for  himself  by  the  appearance  of  Jesus 
to  him  on  the  way  to  Damascus,  powerfully  helped  Paul  to 
grasp  the  thought  of  Christ's  death  as  an  atonement  for  sin 
and  a  source  of  righteousness.  Twenty  years  after  his  con- 
version he  wrote  in  one  of  his  letters  that  Christ  "  was 
raised  again  for  our  justification."  •  From  the  day  that  he 
believed  that  Jesus  rose  from  the  dead  he  probably  con- 
ceived of  Him  as  being  raised  for  His  own  justification  in 
the  first  place.  That  is  to  say,  for  the  new  convert  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  was  conclusive  proof  that  Jesus  had 
not  suffered  for  His  own  offences.  The  question  inevitably 
arose,  for  whose  then  ?  for  it  was  an  axiom  for  Paul,  as  for 
the  Jews  in  general,  that  death  was  the  penalty  of  sin.  The 
answer  of  faith,  as  formulated  by  the  apostle  in  after  years, 
was.  He  suffered  for  our  offences,  the  Sinless  One  had  been 
made  sin  for  us  to  the  effect  of  enduring  sin's  appointed 
penalty.  This  thought,  like  those  previously  enumerated, 
probably  formed  an  element  in  Paul's  Christian  conscious- 
ness from  the  first,  though  no  clear  statement  of  it  is  to  be 
found  in  his  mission  discourses  reported  in  Act*  or  in  bis 
earliest  Epistles.* 

*  Vide  on  this  subject  Pflelderer's  Urehrutenthvm,  pp.  164-171,  and  for 
the  views  of  the  Jewish  schools  Weber's  System  der  Altsynagogalen  Paldttitt- 
ischen  Theologie.  That  Paul's  modes  of  reasoning  betray  the  influence  of 
early  Rabbinical  training  is  now  pretty  generally  admitted.  His  arguments 
baied  on  the  use  of  the  singular  "seed  "  (Gal.  iii.  16),  the  veil  on  the  face  of 
Moses  (2  Cor.  ill  13),  and  the  allegory  of  Hagar  and  Ishmael  (OaL  iv.  24), 
may  be  referred  to  as  instances.  These  things,  in  which  Paul  paid  tribute 
to  his  age,  only  serve  by  contrast  to  enhance  our  sense  of  his  insight  into 
the  great  principles  of  Christianity.  In  this  region  what  strikes  one  is  not 
the  resemblance  but  the  oontrast  to  Rabbiniam. 

*  Rom.  iv.  25. 

'  On  Pftnl'a  ewlier  mode  of  presenting  Christianity,  m  exhibited  in  Ub 


426  ▲FOL06ETI0S. 

On  the  whole,  it  may  be  said  that  the  main  source  of 
Paul's  theology  was  his  experience.  It  was  a  theoretical 
solution  of  the  problem  of  his  own  individual  conscience. 
How  shall  a  man  be  just  before  God?  It  may  wear  a 
technical  aspect,  due  to  the  fact  that  it  was  formulated  in 
connection  with  a  great  controversy  concerning  the  meaning 
of  the  law  and  the  destination  of  the  gospeL  But  it  is  not 
scholastic  in  spirit,  but  thrills  throughout  with  the  fervour 
of  intense  religious  emotion.  To  this  cause  it  is  due  that 
Paul's  attention  is  concentrated  on  two  events  in  Christ's 
earthly  history :  His  death  and  His  resurrection.  These 
were  the  events  which  met  his  most  urgent  spiritual 
necessities.  This  concentration  is  the  secret  of  his  lasting 
power.  It  enabled  him  to  grasp  the  religious  significance 
of  the  events  referred  to  with  a  clearness  of  insight,  and  to 
express  it  with  a  vividness,  which  have  given  his  state- 
ments, apart  from  the  deference  paid  to  them  as  inspired,  a 
permanent  hold  on  the  mind  of  Christendom.  We  can 
hardly  think  of  the  general  religious  truth  that  we  are 
saved  by  grace,  apart  from  Paul's  special  theological  formu- 
lation of  it  in  his  doctrine  of  justification. 

But  concentration  brings  limitations  as  well  as  power. 
Limitation  is,  indeed,  a  condition  of  power.  Prophets  pro- 
phesy in  part,  and  they  tell  upon  their  time  because  they 
do  so.  Paul's  prophetic  intensity  and  onesidedness  enabled 
him  to  assert  the  independence  and  universality  of  Chris- 
tianity with  an  emphasis  which  put  the  matter  for  ever 
beyond  controversy.  It  therefore  does  no  dishonour  to 
him  to  take  in  earnest  his  own  words  concerning  the 
limited  nature  of  all  prophecy,  and  to  say  that  he  has  not 
in  his  Epistles  exhausted  the  significance  of  the  earthly 
history  of  Jesus.  He  has  not  even  presented  in  all  its 
aspects  the  meaning  of  Christ's  death.  He  has  set  forth 
with  power  the  mystic  solidarity  of  believers  with  a 
crucified  and  risen  Saviour,  but  he  has  not  taught  with 

diBconrses  reported  in  Acta  •nd  1  and  8  Thessaloniau,  vide  Sabatiert  Tkt 
Apottit  Paul,  Book  UL 


PAUL.  427 

frreadth  and  emphasis  the  precious  doctrine  of  OhriBt'a 
temptations  and  priestly  sympathy.  For  that  we  most  go  to 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  He  has  stated  in  the  avail- 
able categories  of  thought  the  theological  importance  of 
Christ's  death,  but  he  has  not  exhibited  its  ethical  import 
as  the  result  of  the  sufferer's  fidelity  to  righteousness  and 
to  His  Messianic  vocation,  which  is  the  foundation  of  the 
theological  superstructure.  To  learn  this  first  and  funda- 
mental lesson  we  must  go  to  the  Gospels,  where  Christ's 
public  ministry,  as  it  unfolds  itself,  is  seen  to  be  an  inces- 
sant and  deadly  conflict  with  a  counterfeit  righteousness 
of  which  Paul  himself  was  first  the  dupe  and  then  the 
victim.  And  much  more  of  great  value  to  the  Christian 
faith  and  life  is  to  be  learned  from  the  same  source,  which 
is  not  to  be  got  out  of  Paul.  There  we  find  the  historical 
vouchers  for  the  fierceness  of  the  temptations  and  the  depth 
of  the  sympathy  whereof  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  delights  to  discourse.  There  we  see  that  redeem- 
ing gracious  love  to  the  sinful  in  daily  exercise,  which  for 
Paul  was  God-commended  by  the  supreme  instance  of  the 
cross, — a  love  all  the  more  impressive  that  it  was  shown 
toward  objects  neglected  by  the  reputedly  good,  as  past  all 
hope  of  salvation.  There  the  nature  of  true  goodness  is 
revealed  by  contrast  with  a  spurious  type,  arrogant  in  its 
pretensions  and  intolerant  of  rivals.  There  the  doctrine  of 
God  as  the  Father  in  heaven,  and  of  man  even  at  the  worst 
as  His  son,  is  asserted  with  a  breadth,  simplicity,  and 
emphasis  unique  in  the  history  of  religious  literature. 
There  we  become  acquainted  with  another  mode  of  present- 
ing for  man's  acceptance  the  summum  honum,  Christ's  own 
chosen  way,  viz,  as  a  kingdom  of  God.  Paul's  point  of 
view  is  individual.  Christ's  is  sociaL  The  righteousness 
of  God  is  a  boon  offered  to  faith  as  the  solution  of  the 
problem  of  the  individual  conscience.  The  kingdom  of  God 
is  a  gift  of  divine  love  to  men  conceived  of  as  related  to 
GU)d  as  sons  and  to  each  other  as  brethren,  a  gift  which 
cannot   be   enjoyed   except   in   connection   with  a  social 


428  APOLOGETICS. 

organism.  The  two  aspects  of  the  summum  honum  are  nol 
incompatible  or  without  important  points  of  contact.  The 
idea  of  social  solidarity  in  reality  underlies  Paul's  concep- 
tion of  the  highest  good.  Believers  are  in  mystic  unity 
with  Christ ;  they  die,  rise,  and  ascend  to  heaven  with  Him. 
They  are  a  joint-stock  company  for  good  and  evil,  first  in 
their  common  relation  to  the  Head,  and  inferentially  in 
relation  to  one  another.  Still  what  is  present  to  the  mind 
of  one  who  regards  the  highest  good  under  the  Pauline 
aspect  is  the  question.  How  am  I  as  an  individual  man  to 
become  just  before  God  ?  It  is  a  vital  question,  but  it 
needs  supplementing  by  the  larger  one.  How  am  I  to  get 
into  right  relations  with  the  whole  moral  world  ;  with  God 
and  with  my  fellowmen  ?  Christ's  answer  to  the  latter 
question  may  be  found  alternatively  in  His  doctrine  of  God 
and  man,  or  in  His  doctrine  concerning  Himself.  Think 
of  God  as  your  gracious  Father,  and  of  all  men,  even  the 
most  degraded,  as  His  sons,  and  let  your  life  be  dominated 
by  this  great  ruling  thought  Regard  me  as  at  once  Son  of 
God  and  Son  of  man,  and  in  fellowship  with  me  enter  into 
possession  of  the  same  divine  dignity,  and  the  exercise  of 
the  same  human  sympathies.  It  is  the  business  of  theology 
to  determine  the  afi&nities  between  the  Galilean  and  the 
Pauline  Gospels,  but  it  is  the  privilege  of  religious  faith  to 
enter  into  life  by  the  door  which  Jesus  has  opened  without 
stopping  to  try  whether  Paul's  key  fits  the  lock.  The 
words  of  Jesus  are  "  words  of  eternal  life,"  and  no  truth 
not  spoken  by  Him  can  be  essential  to  salvation,  however 
helpful  for  upbuilding  in  faith.  His  teaching  contains  in 
the  smallest  measure  a  local  and  temporary  element  Paul 
and  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  as  to  the  form 
of  their  thought  and  their  modes  of  reasoning,  spoke  largely 
to  the  men  of  their  own  generation,  having  it  for  their  task 
to  reveal  and  commend  the  spirit  of  the  new  Christian  era 
to  minds  wedded  to  the  past.  Jesus  addressed  Himself  to 
humanity,  and  many  of  His  sayings,  even  in  their  form,  are  aa 
modem  as  if  they  had  been  uttered  in  the  present  century. 


PAUL.  429 

These  obsenrations  may  serve  as  a  corrective  to  a  tend- 
en  ly  that  has  been  more  or  less  operative,  especially  in 
tho^i  Protestant  section  of  the  Church,  to  discover  the  gospel 
almost  exclusively  in  Paul's  writings,  and  to  neglect  the 
Gospels  as  of  little  doctrinal  value.  In  avoiding  one  ex- 
treme, however,  we  must  beware  of  going  to  another,  that 
of  neglecting  Paul  in  our  new  love  for  the  Gospels.  This 
tendency  is  not  without  its  representatives,  and  it  has  found 
a  persuasive  mouthpiece  in  Eenan.  In  his  work  on  St 
Paul  this  author  writes :  "  After  being  for  three  hundred 
years  the  Christian  doctor  par  excellence,  thanks  to  Protest- 
ant orthodoxy,  Paul  in  our  day  la  on  the  point  of  finishing 
his  reign.  Jesus,  on  the  contrary,  is  more  living  than  ever. 
It  is  no  more  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  that  is  the  risumt 
of  Christianity.  It  is  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  The  true 
Christianity  which  will  remain  eternally,  comes  from  the 
Gospels,  not  from  the  Epistles  of  Paul."  *  This  is  a  super- 
ficial hasty  verdict.  A  truer  judgment  will  recognise  that 
the  Christianity  of  Paul  is  essentially  the  same  as  that  of 
Jesus.  Nor  will  a  candid  mind  reckon  it  an  unpardonable 
sin  that  Paul's  thoughts  on  the  nature  of  the  Christian 
religion  were  cast  in  a  controversial  mould.  That  the 
apostle  was  a  controversialist  is  a  fact,  but  it  was  his  mis- 
fortune, not  his  fault  The  great  question  regarding  the 
relation  of  Christianity  to  Judaism  could  not  fail  to  arise 
sooner  or  later.  Conflict  on  this  point,  on  which  the  whole 
future  of  Christianity  turned,  was  inevitable,  and  some  one 
must  render  the  inestimable  service  to  humanity  of  fighting 
for  the  right  in  the  momentous  quarrel.  Paul  was  the  man 
selected  by  Providence  to  perform  this  task,  and  instead  of 
blaming  him  for  his  destiny,  let  us  rather  be  thankful  that 
he  discerned  and  chose  the  right  side,  and  fought  for  it  with 
incomparable  skill  and  with  heroic  determination,  as  well 
M  with  triumphant  success. 

^  Bk.  Ptud,  pp.  U%  V!% 


430  APOLOGETIOB. 

OHAPTEB  VIL 

PBIMmVE  CHRISTIANITT. 

LiTEBATUBE.  —  Neander,  History  of  ths  Planting  and 
Training  of  the  Christian  Church;  Baur,  Die  GeschichU 
der  ChristlicJun  Kirche,  Band  I.,  and  Faulus  der  Apostd ; 
Albrecht  Eitschl,  Entstehung  der  Alt-Katholischen  Kirche 
(2te  Aufl.  1857) ;  Hausrath,  Neutestamentliche  Zeitgeschichte 
(translated) ;  Reuss,  Geschichte  der  heiligen  Schriften  N.T&,  5te 
Aufl.  1874 ;  Keim,  Aus  dem  Urchristenthum,  1878  ;  Holsten, 
Das  Evangelium  des  Faulus,  1880 ;  Bleek,  Introduction  to  the 
New  Testament  (translation) ;  B.  Weiss,  Introduction  to  the 
New  Testament  (translation,  1887) ;  Weizsacker,  Das  Apo8- 
tolische  Zeitalt«r,  2te  Aufl.  1891 ;  Pfleiderer,  Urchristenihum, 

Christianity,  as  apprehended  by  Paul,  was,  we  have  seen, 
a  universal  religion.  His  mode  of  thought,  when  engaged 
in  theological  discussion,  might  be  distinctively  Jewish, 
and  his  method  of  using  Scripture  in  proof  of  his  positions 
might  occasionally  betray  the  influence  of  early  training  in 
the  Eabbinical  schools,  but  in  all  his  Epistles  he  represented 
Christianity  as  a  religion  to  be  made  known  unto  all  the 
nations  unto  obedience  of  faith.  From  these  same  Epistles, 
especially  from  those  written  to  the  Galatian  and  Corinthiwi 
Churches,  it  is  evident  that  his  view  did  not  command 
unanimous  assent,  but  was  bitterly  opposed  by  a  section  of 
the  Christian  community.  That  diversity  of  opinion  as  to 
the  relation  of  Christianity  to  Judaism  prevailed  in  the 
early  Church  appears  likewise  from  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews.  The  author  of  that  Epistle  is  evidently  in  sym- 
pathy with  Paul,  but  he  writes  to  a  body  of  Christians, 
apparently  Hebrews  in  race,  who  had  little  insight  into  the 
genius  of  Christianity  and  little  inclination  to  regard  it,  as 
he  did,  as  the  absolute  religion  entitled  to  supersede  the 
old  Jewish  covenant  and  Levitical  worship. 

Such  divergencies   of  view    within    the  bosom  of   the 


PRIMITIVE   CHRISTIANITY.  431 

Church  naturally  raise  the  wider  question,  Through  what 
phases  did  Christianity  pass  in  the  formative  period  of  its 
history,  and  in  what  relation  did  these  stand  to  Christ  and 
to  Paul :  the  great  Master  and  His  greatest  disciple  ?  On 
this  question  great  difference  of  opinion  prevails  among 
theologians.  The  whole  subject  of  primitive  Christianity, 
as  it  was  taught  by  Jesus,  and  as  it  manifested  itself  in 
the  period  antecedent  to  the  formation  of  the  old  Catholic 
Church,  is  the  battle-ground  of  contending  parties,  and  the 
whole  truth  as  to  the  matters  in  debate  is  by  no  means 
on  either  side  of  the  controversy,  whether  orthodox  or 
heterodox. 

Four  distinct  theories  concerning  the  tendencies  at  work 
in  early  Christianity  have  found  advocates  among  modern 
critics.* 

1.  The  first  of  these  theories  is  that  of  Dr.  Ferdinand 
Christian  Baur.  According  to  Baur,  Christ  not  less  than 
Paul  was  universalistic  in  spirit  He  taught  a  religion 
purely  ethical  in  its  nature,  equally  adapted  for  all  climes, 
and  destined  in  His  intention  to  become  the  religion  of 
humanity.  But  His  disciples  failed  to  apprehend  the  drift 
of  His  teaching,  so  that,  after  His  death,  among  all  the 
men  bearing  the  title  of  an  apostle,  Paul  was  the  only  one 
who  entered  with  intelligence  and  enthusiasm  into  the 
spirit  of  the  Master.  Hence  arose,  in  course  of  time,  a 
great  controversy  as  to  the  relation  between  Christianity 
and  Judaism,  in  which  Paul  was  on  one  side,  and  all  the 
eleven  original  apostles  on  the  other ;  Paul  contending  for 
the  right  of  Christianity  to  be  an  independent  religion,  and 
to  go  on  its  world-conquering  career  untrammelled  by  the 
uncongenial  restrictions  of  Jewish  law  and  custom ;  the 
eleven  striving  to  keep  the  new  religion  in  a  state  of 
pupilage  to  the  old.     The  history  of  Christianity  from  the 

'  For  the  sake  of  definiteness  in  statement,  I  connect  these  theories  vith 
M  many  individnal  names.  It  will  be  nnderstood  that  each  name  repre- 
sents  more  or  less  a  schooL  For  a  enfficiently  fall  account  of  the  critical 
literatore  bearing  on  the  aabjeot,  vide  Weiss,  JmiroduetUm  to  tht  Jfem 
Titttimtmtf  Introduotioiu 


432  APOLOGETICS. 

apostolic  age  to  the  rise  of  the  old  Catholic  Church  in  the 
middle  of  the  second  century  was  the  history  of  this  con- 
troversy in  its  various  stages  of  (1)  unmitigated  antagonism 
between  the  two  opposed  tendencies ;  (2)  incipient  and 
progressive  reconciliation  ;  (3)  consummated  reconciliation 
and  completed  union  and  unity.  The  books  of  the  New 
Testament  all  relate  to  one  or  other  of  these  stages,  and 
their  dates  may  be  approximately  fixed  by  the  tendencies 
they  respectively  represent.  A  book  which  belongs  to  the 
first  stage,  and  advocates  either  pure  Paulinism  or  a  purely 
Judaistic  view  of  Christianity,  is  therefore  early  and 
apostolic ;  on  the  other  hand,  a  book  which  belongs  to  the 
final  stage,  and  presents  a  view  of  Christianity  rising  entirely 
above  early  antagonisms,  must  be  of  late  date,  and  cannot 
have  had  an  apostle  for  its  author. 

2.  The  most  thoroughgoing  opponent  of  the  Ttibingen 
theory  is  Dr.  Bernhard  Weiss.  This  author,  whose  con- 
tributions to  New  Testament  criticism  possess  much  value, 
is  animated  by  an  undue  desire  to  negative  Baur's  con- 
elusions  all  along  the  line.  On  this  account  a  large 
deduction  must  be  made  from  the  weight  to  be  attached  to 
his  statements  on  the  questions  at  issue.  It  is  not  the 
fact  that  the  Tubingen  school  is  always  wrong,  and  it  is  a 
very  questionable  service  to  the  Christian  faith  that  is 
rendered  by  an  apologetic  going  on  that  assumption. 
Briefly  put,  the  view  of  Weiss  is  that  neither  in  the  case 
of  Jesus  nor  in  the  case  of  Paul  was  Christianity,  as 
originally  conceived,  universalisticL  The  aim  of  Jesus  was 
simply  to  establish  a  theocratic  national  kingdom  in  IsraeL 
He  never  dreamt  of  calling  in  question  the  perpetual 
obligation  of  the  Mosaic  law ;  and  the  idea  of  making  dis- 
ciples among  the  Gentiles  arose  in  His  mind  only  at  a  late 
period  in  His  career,  when  He  began  to  despair  of  winning 
His  countrymen  to  righteousness.  Somewhat  similar, 
according  to  this  author,  was  the  experience  of  PauL  His 
nniversalism  was  not  the  immediate  outcome  of  the  spiritual 
srisiB  which  issued  in  his  conversion ;  it  was  an  afterthought 


FBIMITiyB  CHBISTIANITT.  483 

saggefiteA  hj  ontward  eventcL  He  does,  indeed,  in  his 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  connect  his  conversion  with  the 
divine  intention  to  make  him  an  apostle  to  the  Gentiles, 
bat  we  are  not  to  suppose  that  this  was  clear  to  him  from 
the  beginning.  He  is  simply  reading  the  teleology  of  his 
conversion  in  the  light  of  long  subsequent  history.  What 
really  first  opened  his  mind  to  the  great  thought  of  a 
vocation  to  apostleship  in  the  Gentile  world  was  his  experi- 
ence of  Jewish  unbelief  and  Gentile  receptivity  on  his 
mission  tour  through  the  cities  of  Asia  Minor.  That 
mission  was  not,  in  the  intention  of  the  Church  at  Antioch 
in  Syria,  a  mission  to  the  heathen,  but  only  to  the  Jewish 
Diaspora,  but  it  suggested  the  idea  of  a  heathen  mission  to 
the  susceptible  mind  of  Paul.  The  results  revealed  to  him 
a  divine  purpose  to  reject  Israel  and  to  call  the  Gentiles  in 
their  room.^ 

On  this  view  there  were  no  materials  out  of  which  a 
great  controversy  concerning  the  nature  of  Christianity 
could  arise.  There  were  not  two  ways  of  thinking  on  the 
subject.  The  contrast  between  Paulinism  and  the  Judaistio 
Christianity  of  the  eleven  disappears.  A  universalism  of 
conviction  had  no  existence:  all  were  Judaists  to  begin 
with,  and  the  only  universalism  known  to  the  Apostolic 
Church  was  of  an  opportunist  character,  and  such  as  there 
was  did  not  distinguish  Paul  from  the  original  apostles,  for 
all  alike  bowed  to  events  and  acknowledged  that  God  had 
granted  to  the  Gentiles  eternal  life. 

3.  More  in  sympathy  with  the  views  of  Baur  are  those 
of  Weizsacker.  He  believes  that  the  religious  spirit  both 
of  Jesus  and  of  Paul  was  pronouncedly  universalistic.  Far 
from  doubting  the  claim  of  Jesus  to  this  attribute,  he  is  of 
opinion  that  His  universalism  was  of  a  more  decided 
character  than  even  that  of  PauL  He  differs  from  Baur 
chiefly  in  thinking  that  there  was  a  universalistic  tendency 
at  work  in  the  Palestine  or  Hebrew  Church  entirely  inde- 
pendent of  Paul ;  specifying  as  instances  Stephen,  Barnabas^ 
>  IiOroduetion  to  the  New  Testament,  pp.  154,  1<4 

21 


434  APOLooKnca 

and  Apollos.     The  original  apostles  he  conceives  to  hare 

sympathised  with  this  tendency  to  a  certain  extent,  though 
coming  far  short  of  the  Gentile  apostle  in  zeal  for  the  great 
cause  of  a  Christianity  emancipated  from  the  dominion  of 
Jewish  legalism.*  This  view,  in  itself  intrinsically  probable, 
has  an  important  bearing  on  the  history  of  early  Christianity. 
It  reduces  the  cleavage  in  the  Church  to  less  formidable 
dimensions.  It  leaves  room  still  for  controversy  arising 
out  of  diversity  of  view  as  to  the  nature  and  destination 
of  the  Christian  faith,  but  the  war  of  conflicting  opinion 
could  not,  on  Weizsacker's  conception  of  the  state  of  parties, 
be  the  tragic  affair  that  it  was  bound  to  be  according  to 
the  Tiibingen  scheme.  For,  in  the  first  place,  by  his 
account  all  the  leading  men  were  practically  on  one  side ; 
whereas,  according  to  Dr.  Baur,  the  state  of  the  case  was 
Paul  single-handed  versus  the  pillars  of  the  Church.  Then, 
in  the  second  place,  the  cleavage  in  the  Church,  on  the 
Weizsacker  theory,  was  not  one  of  race.  Paul  had  warm 
friends  and  supporters,  not  only  among  Gentile  converts, 
but  also  among  Christians  of  Hebrew  extraction.  On  these 
terms  a  controversy  of  an  epoch-making  character,  and 
forming  the  great  event  of  early  Church  history,  could  not 
possibly  arise. 

4.  Pfleiderer,  while  believing  that  the  teaching  of  JeauB 
contained  the  germs  of  universalism,^  reserves  for  Paul  the 
praise  of  being  the  first  to  proclaim  with  clear  insight  and 
impassioned  emphasis  the  great  doctrine  of  a  gospel  of 
grace  for  the  world,  and  for  all  on  equal  terms,  involving 
as  a  corollary  the  abrogation  of  the  Jewish  ceremonial  law 
both  for  Jewish  and  for  Gentile  believers.  The  leading 
apostles,  especially  Peter,  he  conceives  as  sympathising  to 

*  Weissacker,  Dae  Apottoli«ehe  ZeitalUr,  p.  487. 

'  Among  the  historically  reliable  data  going  to  proye  that  Jesos  waa 
animated  by  a  "reforming  free  spirit,"  Pfleiderer  includes  the  sayingi 
concerning  the  new  wine  and  old  skins,  the  relativity  of  the  Sabbath  law 
(the  Sabbath  made  for  man),  the  worthlessness  of  the  ceremonial  law,  and 
the  destroying  of  the  Temple  and  building  of  a  spiritual  temple.  -~ 
UrcKrittenthum,  p.  498. 


PRnunYE  OHBISTIANTTT.  435 

A  oeita!n  extent  with  Paul's  position,  bat  lacking  a  distinct 
understanding  and  firm  grasp  of  the  principles  at  stake, 
and  on  that  account  disqualified  for  rendering  Paul  effective 
service  against  his  Judaistic  opponents,  and  even  exposed 
to  the  risk  of  being  themselves  mistaken  for  antagonists. 
In  such  circumstances  misunderstanding,  alienation,  and 
controversy  might  easily  arise.  But  in  Pfleiderer's  view 
the  great  fact  of  primitive  Christianity  was  by  no  means 
the  conflict  between  Paulinism  and  Judaism,  but  rather 
the  development  which  Paulinism  itself  underwent.  For 
this  writer  Paulinism  is  Christianity.  It  is  the  one  thing 
we  surely  know  in  connection  with  the  beginnings  of  the 
Christian  religion,  an  island  of  firm  historical  ground 
surrounded  by  a  sea  of  uncertainty.  Its  influence  can 
be  traced  everywhere  in  the  New  Testament,  in  Gospels 
and  in  Epistles,  and  the  movement  of  thought  to  which  it 
gave  rise  is  the  one  phenomenon  of  first-rate  importance 
with  which  the  student  of  Church  history  has  to  deal  down  to 
the  middle  of  the  second  century.  But  what  is  Paulinism  ? 
It  is,  according  to  Pfleiderer,  a  complex  system  of  ideas 
derived  from  different  sources,  lacking  inner  harmony,  and 
liable  therefore  to  part  company  in  the  course  of  time. 
The  account  he  gives  of  the  theological  system  of  Paul  is 
analogous  to  that  given  by  Baur  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus. 
In  both  cases  two  things  are  tied  together,  which,  if  not 
absolutely  contradictory,  are  at  least  heterogeneous,  and 
therefore  sure  to  fall  asunder  in  the  course  of  development 
In  the  case  of  Jesus,  according  to  Baur,  they  were:  a 
universalist  religious  spirit  and  a  nationalistic  form,  the 
Jewish  Messianic  idea.  In  the  case  of  Paul,  according  to 
Pfleiderer,  they  were  two  sets  of  ideas,  the  one  borrowed 
from  the  theology  of  the  Pharisaic  schools,  the  other  from 
Hellenistic  philosophy,  as  represented  by  the  Book  of 
Wisdom.  What  he  got  from  the  former  source  we  already 
know:  it  was  mainly  his  doctrine  of  imputed  righteous- 
ness.^   What  he  got  from  the  latter  source  it  is  not  so  easy 

t  Vide  p.  42&. 


436  APOLOGETICS. 

to  make  out ;  for  at  this  point  the  theory  of  our  autboi 

wears  the  aspect  of  an  airy  speculation  with  a  very  slender 
basis  of  fact.  But  so  far  as  one  can  gather,  the  Hellenistic 
influence  is  traceable  in  Paul's  ideas  of  the  future  life,  in 
his  anthropology,  and,  above  all,  in  his  doctoine  of  imparted 
righteousness.  Paul,  we  know,  was  not  content  that  the 
believer  should  have  God's  righteousness  imputed  to  him 
on  the  ground  of  Christ's  atoning  death.  He  held  it 
indispensable  that  the  believer  should  be  really  personally 
righteous,  and  this  he  was  persuaded  all  believers  could 
become  through  mystic  fellowship  with  Christ  crucified 
and  risen.  In  neither  part  of  this  composite  doctrine  of 
righteousness,  according  to  Pfleiderer,  was  the  apostle 
original.  He  derived  the  one  half  from  the  school  of 
Gamaliel,  the  other  from  the  school  of  Philo.  His  theory 
of  imputed  righteousness  was,  we  are  informed,  "  Christian- 
ised Pharisaism,"  and  his  theory  of  real  righteousness 
"  Christianised  Hellenism."  *  And  what,  we  naturally  ask, 
was  the  subsequent  fortune  of  these  two  theories  ?  Not 
exactly  to  fall  asunder  into  antagonism,  and  become  the 
watchwords  of  fiercely  contending  parties.  Rather  this  : 
the  theory  of  imputed  righteousness  was  too  abstruse, 
peculiar,  and  Jewish  to  be  understood  by  Gentile  Chris- 
tians ;  therefore  it  was  to  a  large  extent  ignored,  and  only 
the  Hellenistic  side  of  Pauline  theology  took  root  and  grew 
with  a  vigorous  and  lasting  vitality  in  the  great  Christian 
community  of  which  Paul  was  the  founder.  So  arose  a 
new  type  of  thought,  Pauline  in  its  origin,  holding  firmly 
the  great  principle  of  Christian  universalism,  but  dis- 
regarding Paul's  controversial  theology  and  rising  above  the 
antitheses  of  original  Paulinism.  This  new  catholic  theo- 
logy is,  we  are  told,  not  to  be  regarded  either  as  an  external 
reconciliation  of  Paulinism  and  Judaistic  Christianity,  nor 
as  a  corruption  of  Paulinism  through  heathenish  super- 
ficiality and  Greek  world  -  wisdom,  but  rather  as  the 
legitimate  development  of  Hellenism  Christianised  by 
*  fTrehristenthum,  p.  17S. 


PEIMITIVE   CHRISTIANITT.  487 

Paul,  and,  as  such,  distinct  both  from  Paulinism  and  from 
Judaistic  Christianity,  a  third  thing  beside  and  above 
both.i 

Of  these  hypothetical  constructions,  which  seem  to 
exhaust  the  possibilities  of  the  case,*  that  of  Weizsacker 
possesses  the  highest  measure  of  probability.  His  idea  of 
the  religious  attitude  of  Jesus,  as  more  purely  and  absolutely 
human  and  universal  than  that  even  of  Paul,  especially  com- 
mends itself  as  thoroughly  reasonable.  Weiss  has,  indeed, 
gained  from  Hartmann  the  praise  of  having  given  the  truest 
account  of  the  Christianity  of  Christ.'  It  is  a  doubtful 
compliment  as  coming  from  a  man  who  thinks  Christianity 

*  Urchristenthum,  pp.  616,  617. 

■  If  not  absolutely,  at  least  relatively  to  the  asBnmption  common  to  all  th« 
fooT  theories  of  the  genninenesa  of  the  four  great  Pauline  Epistles  (Oalatiaru, 
Corinthians,  Romans).  It  might  entirely  alter  the  whole  character  and 
course  of  primitive  Christianity  if  there  were  grounds  for  regarding  these  aa 
spurious,  and  late  products  of  a  partisan  pen  in  the  second  century.  There 
have  not  been  wanting  men  bold  enough  to  advocate  this  view.  Thus  quite 
recently,  Professor  Steck  of  Bern,  following  Professor  Loman  of  Amsterdam 
{QuoBstiones  Paulince),  has  presented  himself  as  its  champion  {Dei-  Galater- 
brief  nach  seiner  Echtheit  untersucht,  1888).  The  resulting  conception  of 
primitive  Christianity  is  to  this  effect:  The  opposition  between  the  real 
Pauline  and  the  original  apostolic  tendency  was  not  at  first  very  marked  ;  it 
rose  to  its  height  only  gradually,  and  after  the  death  of  the  Apostle  PaoL 
Originally  the  two  tendencies  were  not  so  very  far  apart.  Paul  was,  perhaps, 
a  little  freer  than  Peter,  but  that  was  all.  Only  after  the  death  of 
Paul  did  the  antagonism  become  acute,  and  even  the  '*  Pauline"  Epistles  show 
us  the  progressive  development  of  one  side  of  it.  First,  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans  quietly  expounds  the  Gentile-Christian  view  ;  then  the  two  Epistles 
to  the  Corinthians,  assuming  a  livelier  tone,  glorify  Paul  as  the  minister  of 
the  new  covenant,  and  advocate  a  law-emancipated  Paulinism  ;  finally, 
Oalatians  ventures  to  storm  the  citadel  of  legalism  and  to  assume  a  defiant 
tone  towards  the  authority  of  the  original  apostles  (pp.  372,  373).  Steck 
regards  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  as  an  earlier  writing  than  these  four  Epistles, 
and  a  much  more  reliable  source  of  information  as  to  the  character  and  views 
of  PauL  On  this  new  theory  Paul  assumes  a  quite  subordinate  place  in  the 
history  of  nascent  Christianity,  and  the  Epistles  bearing  his  name,  which 
have  been  supposed  by  modem  critics  to  be  the  surest  historical  foundation 
for  their  theoretical  constructions,  are  degraded  into  olever  fabrioatioiu  of 
some  unknown  writer  of  the  second  century. 

'  Vidt  Die  8elb»tser»etzung  dea  Ohristenthunu  und  dU  lidigim  du  Mw 
hmft,  p.  41. 


488  APOLOOETIOB 

is  far  gone  in  a  process  of  self-dissolution,  and  who  seems 

bent  on  reducing  the  claims  of  Jesus  on  the  gratitude  of 
mankind  to  a  minimum.*  It  has  always  appeared  to  me 
that  with  all  his  critical  acumen,  Weiss  lacks  the  power  of 
appreciating  the  character  of  Christ,  and  that  the  great  sub- 
ject of  the  evangelic  narratives  as  exhibited  in  his  pages, 
while  a  very  important  official  personage,  is  nevertheless 
a  commonplace  man.  It  is  hard  to  understand  how  any 
one  recognising  the  substantial  historicity  of  the  Gospels, 
and  studying  them  with  unbiassed  mind  (but  there  lies  the 
difficulty !),  can  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  Jesus  was  as 
national  and  narrow  in  His  views  and  feelings  and  hopes 
as  the  ordinary  Jewish  Christian  of  the  apostolic  age.  So 
many  things  in  the  Gospels  of  unquestionable  authenticity 
point  the  other  way ;  that  passionate  abhorrence  of  Eah- 
binism,  that  loving,  comrade-like  relation  to  the  outcasts, 
that  significant  parabolic  comparison  of  the  religious  move- 
ment He  had  inaugurated  to  new  wine  and  a  new  garment.' 
Jesus  seems  to  have  risen  above  legalism  and  Jewish  par- 
ticularism without  effiart  or  struggle,  as  a  bird  rises  from  the 
ground  into  the  air,  its  native  element  Paul  purchased  his 
spiritual  freedom  at  a  great  price,  but  Jesus  was  free-bom. 
Regarding  His  early  education  we  have  no  information ; 
He  may  have  been  brought  into  contact  in  His  boyhood 
with  the  Rabbis,  but  no  trace  of  Rabbinical  influence  can 
be  detected  in  the  self-manifestations  of  His  manhood. 
The  baleful  spirit  of  legalism  never  seems  to  have  touched 
His  virgin  souL  Paul's  emancipation  came  through  his 
eventual  insight  into  the  inward  nature  of  true  righteous- 
ness. That  it  came  to  him  at  all  evinced  his  moral 
superiority  to  the  ordinary  Pharisee;  but  that  it  came  to 
him  so  late  evinces  with  equal  clearness  decided  short- 
coming from   the  ideal   experience.      Why   should    it    be 

'  Vide  Die  KritU  des  Christenthunu  in  der  Modemen  Theologi^ 
'  Pfleiderer  finds  in  these  parable  germs,  whose  historicity  he  thinks  then 
is  no  ground  for  questioning,  the  revelation  of  a  clear  energetic  consciousnes* 
an  the  part  of  Jesus  of  the  essential  newness  of  His  ethico-religioos  spirit  in 
relation  to  Jadaina.     Vide  Urchristenthum,  p.  865. 


PRIMITIVE   CHRISTIANITY.  439 

necessary  to  wait  so  long  to  be  conscious  of  coveting,  oi 
to  see  that  coveting  was  sin,  or  to  learn  that  a  man  might 
be  like  a  whited  sepulchre,  fair  without,  full  of  dead  men's 
bones  and  of  all  uncleanness  within  ?  Can  we  not  imagine 
one  seeing  into  all  that  intuitively ;  and  was  not  Jesus  in 
His  whole  cast  of  mind  and  spirit  just  the  one  to  have  this 
instinctive  insight  and  all  that  went  along  with  it  ? 

Paul  came  far  short  of  the  ideal,  and  was  much  inferior 
every  way  to  his  Master,  but  he  was  not  so  dull  and  slow 
to  learn  as  Weiss  has  represented  him.  Nothing  could  be 
more  prosaic  than  this  author's  whole  conception  of  the 
apostle's  religious  experience.  His  conversion  was  a  pure 
and  absolute  miracle.  It  was  a  miracle  wrought  by  an 
external  cause,  the  appearance  to  him  of  the  risen  Christ  on 
the  way  to  Damascus.  It  was  not  prepared  for  or  rendered 
probable  by  any  antecedent  spiritual  experience ;  it  was  an 
accident  so  far  as  any  such  experience  was  concerned.  By 
his  fanatical  zeal  against  the  Christians  at  the  time  it 
occurred,  Saul  was  not  kicking  against  the  pricks  of  rising 
conviction,  but  simply  seeking  to  win  the  favour  of  Gk>d  by 
adding  to  his  stock  of  merit.  He  might  have  gone  on  in 
this  course  indefinitely  had  not  Christ  happened  to  appear 
to  him  to  stop  his  persecuting  career.*  Many  years  after 
his  first  conversion  to  Christianity  he  underwent  a  second 
conversion  to  Christian  universalism,  the  cause  this  time  also 
being  external  circumstances.*  On  this  view  Paul's  experi- 
ence loses  all  moral  contents  and  his  convictions  all  spiritual 
depth,  and  from  being  one  of  the  few  very  great  men  of 
the  human  race,  he  sinks  down  to  the  level  of  a  third-rate 
actor  in  one  of  the  grand  dramas  of  the  world's  religious 
history.  One  wonders  how  the  greatest  of  the  universal 
religions  ever  came  to  be,  with  such  a  dearth  of  insight  and 
foresight  and  initiative  in  its  originators.  But  the  poverty 
is  not  in  them,  but  in  their  modern  interpreters. 

For  it  may  be  confidently  affirmed  that  not  only  Jesus 

>  VftAaa,  IntroduetUm  to  tie  Ntm  Tettament,  L  151. 
•Ibid.  I  154. 


440  APOLOOETIGS. 

and  Paul,  but  even  men  of  the  second  magnitude,  sncb  m 
Stephen,  Barnabas,  and  Apollos,  had  a  prophetic  presenti- 
ment that  their  work  concerned  mankind.  It  is  not 
credible,  as  Weiss  alleges,  that  the  fanatical  rage  of  the 
Jews  against  the  protomartyr  had  no  more  serious  cause 
than  the  free  exercise  of  the  recognised  prophetic  right  of 
denouncing  unbelief  and  impenitence,  and  threatening  with 
destruction  a  people  persisting  in  evil  coursea*  The  men 
who  stoned  him  to  death  acted,  doubtless,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  a  vague  but  overmastering  feeling  that  his 
eloquence  meant  danger  to  Jewish  privilege  and  preroga- 
tive, and  portended  an  incipent  religious  revolution.  His 
doctrine  was  a  fateful  word,  like  that  of  Mahomet  when  he 
said.  The  idols  are  vanity.  What  manner  of  man  Barnabas 
was  sufficiently  appears  from  the  fact  of  his  being  sent  as  a 
deputy  from  the  Church  in  Jerusalem  to  Antioch  when  the 
Greeks  there  began  to  receive  the  gospel'  The  historian 
calls  him  "a  good  man."*  His  goodness  consisted  in  a 
capacity  for  generous  sympathy  with  a  new  departure,  by 
which  pusillanimous  narrow-hearted  men  might  have  been 
scared.  It  was  characteristic  of  him  that  on  this  occasion 
he  went  down  to  Tarsus  to  seek  SauL*  He  knew  that 
Saul  was  the  man  for  the  work  that  had  just  commenced, 
and  that  it  was  the  work  for  which  he  had  been  specially 
prepared.  The  two  men  were  well-matched  comrades  as 
the  agents  selected  by  the  Antioch  Church  for  the  first 
Gentile  mission.  We  are  told,  indeed,  that  it  is  an  entire 
mistake  to  suppose  that  it  was  a  mission  to  the  heathen 
that  was  then  inaugurated :  it  was  merely  a  mission  to  the 
Jewish  Diaspora  which  by  good  luck  led  to  conversions 
among  Oentile&*     How  the  prosaic  mind  sucks  all  the 

^  WeiBS,  Introduction,  L  168,  where  we  are  informed  that  It  il  • 
thoronghly  erroneona  idea  that  Stephen  appeared  iu  the  primitive  Ghnroh  ai 
the  foreronner  of  PaoL 

*  Acta  xi  22. 

*  Acta  zi.  24,  irnf",  ItyttlUi  where  the  epithet  kytJU  ia  t9  be  taken  m 
dgnifying  magnanimoaa. 

*  A«tB  zL  25.  ''  Weisa,  Inbrodtuii^m,  L  16S.J 


rRIMITITB  CHBISTIANirr.  441 

lomftnoe  ont  of  history,  and  levels  eyerything  down  to  flat 
commonplace !  If  we  are  to  regard  the  account  given  in 
the  Acts  as  at  all  reliable,  it  is  quite  certain  that  something 
great,  unusual,  startlingly  novel,  and  solemn,  in  view  of  its 
unforeseen  possibilities,  then  took  place.  The  brethren  fasted, 
we  are  told,  as  men  for  whom  fasting  has  not  become  an 
ascetic  habit  do  only  on  very  solemn  occasions.  The  very 
terms  in  which  the  Holy  Spirit  is  represented  as  suggesting 
a  line  of  action  to  the  brethren  assembled  imply  that  some- 
thing extraordinary  is  in  contemplation.*  The  untranslated 
and  untranslatable  Greek  particle  S17,  of  rare  occurrence  in 
the  New  Testament,  is  very  significant  Scholars  know 
how  frequently  it  is  used  in  Plato's  dialogues,  and  what 
liveliness  it  communicates  to  the  discussion.  It  is  an 
emotional  particle,  and  as  used  by  a  Greek  must  have  been 
accompanied  by  appropriate  gestures  and  uttered  with  a 
peculiar  intonation.  As  employed  by  the  sacred  historian, 
it  conveys  the  idea  of  a  great  new  thought  or  purpose 
flashed  with  the  vividness  of  lightning  into  the  mind.  A 
mission  to  the  Diaspora  would  hardly  answer  to  that 
description.  Nor  would  there  be  any  point  in  speaking  of 
Barnabas  and  Saul  as  "  called  "  to  such  a  mission.'  What 
special  call  or  qualifications  were  needed,  unless  it  were  the 
power  to  resist  temptations  to  home-sickness,  which,  as  it 
turned  out,  John  Mark  did  not  possess  ?  • 

That  Apollos  shared  Paul's  universalistic  attitude  is 
Bufl&ciently  evident  from  the  manner  in  which  the  apostle 
speaks  of  him  in  his  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians.  "  He 
recognises  his  independence,  and  that  he  has  his  own  way  of 
teaching,  and  yet  he  is  conscious  of  being  at  one  with  him 
in  the  main  matter;  the  conception  of  the  gospel,  the 
principles  on  which  they  work,  the  universalism,  are  the 
same  for  both."* 

*  i^firmrt  in  ftst  rii  Baf»i|l«f,  eta> 

*  Acts  ziiL  2.  *  Acta  zr.  88. 

*  Weizeacker,  Deu  Apottolinehe  Zeitalter,  p.  488.  Weizsacker  pointa  ovt 
that  a  similar  position  of  independence  and  yet  affinity  in  spirit  and  tend- 
anoy  ia  assigned  bj  the  Apostle  Paal  to  Aitdroaicas  and  Jania  in  Rom.  zvL  7. 


442  APOLOGETICS. 

As  already  indicated,  I  do  not  think  there  is  any  solid 
foundation  for  the  attempt  to  trace  certain  elements  in 
Paul's  theology  to  Hellenistic  influence.  In  particular  it 
seems  futile  to  ascribe  to  such  a  source  his  very  character- 
istic doctrine  of  mystic  fellowship  with  Christ  crucified 
and  risen  as  the  source  of  personal  sanctity.  It  is  quite 
unnecessary  to  seek  for  any  explanation  of  this  doctrine 
outside  the  exigencies  of  Paul's  own  spiritual  life.  As  a 
religious  man  he  felt  the  need  for  something  more  than 
objective  righteousness,  or  pardon,  and  that  something  more 
he  got  by  habitually  realising  his  oneness  with  Christ,  and 
so  letting  Christ's  spiritual  influence  flow  in  upon  him  in 
full  stream.  As  a  theologian  also  he  found  this  train  of 
thought  useful  to  him  for  apologetic  purposes,  especially  as 
helping  him  to  repel  the  suggestion  that  on  his  system  men 
might  continue  in  sin  that  grace  might  abound.  He  met 
the  sinister  insinuation  by  saying:  Thus  rather  do  we 
Christains  view  the  matter;  if  One  died  for  all,  then  all 
died  with  Him.* 

While  denying  that  this  fertile  thought  came  to  Paul 
from  any  external  source,  I  regard  it  as  quite  probable  that 
many  Christians  of  Gentile  birth  felt  more  drawn  by  the 
mystic  side  of  Paul's  doctrine  of  righteousness  than  by  its 
legal  aspect,  as  indeed  is  the  case  with  many  Christians  in 
our  own  time.  We  must  beware,  however,  of  exaggerating 
the  importance  of  the  fact,  as  is  certainly  done  both  when  it 
is  regarded  as  the  efiect  of  a  particular  type  of  non-Christian 
thought  influencing  the  minds  of  Christians,  and  when  it 
is  made  the  watchword  of  a  school  or  party  within  the 
Church  supposed  to  have  played  an  important  rdU  in  early 
ecclesiastical  history. 

From  the  foregoing  statements  some  important  inferences 
may  be  deduced. 

(1)  In  view  of  what  has  been  said  respecting  the  per- 
sonal religions  attitude  of  our  Lord,  the  authenticity  of 
sayings  nniversalistic  in  drift  ascribed  to  Him  in  flie 
>  t  Oor.  T.  11 


PRIMITIVK  CHBISTIANITT.  44S 

Gospels  is  not  to  be  hastily  suspected,  any  more  than  their 
natural  meaning  is  to  be  explained  away.  Special  texts 
may  give  rise  to  critical  doubts,  but  these  must  be  dealt 
with  individually,  each  on  its  own  distinct  merits,  not 
summarily  disposed  of  by  sweeping  general  assumptions. 
The  bearing  of  this  remark  will  be  illustrated  in  next  chapter. 

(2)  In  view  of  the  evidence  produced  that  there  existed 
in  the  early  Church  a  Christian  universalism  entirely  in- 
dependent of  Paul,  it  is  obvious  that  the  presence  of  a 
universalistic  element  in  any  New  Testament  writing  cannot 
by  itself  be  regarded  as  a  proof  of  Pauline  influence.  This 
observation  applies  very  specially  to  the  case  of  one  of  the 
most  important  books  of  the  New  Testament,  tJie  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews,  concerning  the  aim,  authorship,  and  destination 
of  which  the  most  diverse  opinions  have  been  entertained. 
Dr.  Baur's  view  of  this  writing  is  familiar  to  students  of 
modem  critical  literature.  He  regarded  it  as  a  work  of  con- 
ciliatory tendency,  emanating  from  the  Judaistic  side  of  the 
great  controversy,  written  by  a  man  who  had  risen  far  above 
the  narrowness  of  Judaism,  and  desired  to  raise  others  to  the 
same  level  by  exhibiting  the  ancient  Hebrew  cultus  as  a  sub- 
ordinate, rudimentary,  and  transient  stage  in  the  process  of 
religious  development,  destined  to  be  superseded  by  the  ab- 
solute eternal  religion,  Christianity.  This  conception  of  the 
aim  of  the  Epistle  of  course  involves  the  frankest  recognition 
of  its  universalistic  standpoint.  The  implied,  though  nowhere 
expressed  thought  of  the  author,  according  to  Dr.  Baur,  is 
that  the  Hebrew  religion,  with  its  Levitical  ritual,  only 
needs  to  be  reduced  to  its  spiritual  basis  and  generalised 
into  its  ideal  import  to  become  the  religion  of  mankind. 

According  to  Dr.  Weiss,  the  Epistle  is  of  Judaic  Christian 
origin,  and  of  course  lacks  the  universalistic  element.  Dr. 
Pfleiderer,  on  the  other  hand,  is  in  full  accord  with  Dr. 
Baur  and  the  great  majority  of  interpreters,  in  recognising 
the  broad  humanity  of  the  Epistle,  but  equally,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  he  attributes  that  feature  to  the  influence  of 
Paul     He  places  the  book  in  the  class  of  New  Testament 


444  APOLOGETICa 

writings  to  which  he  gives  the  collective  title  of  Christian 
Hellenism  or  Detitero-Paulinism,  having  for  their  character- 
istic the  combination  of  some  of  Paul's  ideas,  especially  of 
his  universalism,  with  elements  of  thought  derived  from  the 
Alexandrian  Jewish  philosophy.  The  aim  of  this  class  of 
writings  in  general  being,  in  his  view,  to  counteract  8 
tendency  to  religious  syncretism  manifesting  itself  not 
merely  among  Jewish  Christians,  but  more  especially  among 
Gentile  Christians  who  had  formerly  been  Jewish  pros- 
elytes, he  does  not  accept  the  traditional  opinion  that  the 
Epistle  was  originally  written  for  the  benefit  of  a  Hebrew 
community.  The  true  source  of  his  bias  on  the  question 
as  to  the  destination  of  the  Epistle  is  obvious.  Its 
alleged  Deutero-Pauline  character  demands  a  later  date 
than  the  eve  of  the  destruction  of  the  holy  city,  the  most 
fitting  occasion  for  an  Epistle  addressed  to  a  Hebrew 
Church,  and  designed  to  warn  them  against  apostasy  and 
its  fearful  penalty. 

There  is  no  good  reason  for  regarding  the  Epistle  as 
Pauline,  either  at  first  or  at  second  hand.  Its  universalism, 
indeed,  must  be  apparent  to  every  unprejudiced  mind,  but 
just  on  that  account  it  may  be  pointed  to  as  one  more 
proof  of  the  existence  in  the  early  Church  of  a  Christian 
universalism  independent  of  Paul.  Who  wrote  it  it  is 
impossible  to  tell.  It  certainly  was  not  written  by  Paul. 
With  equal  certainty  it  may  be  affirmed  that  it  was  not 
written  by  an  immediate  disciple  of  the  apostle's,  the 
whole  style  of  thought  being  entirely  different  from  that  of 
his  recognised  Epistles.  The  name  of  ApoUos,  though 
unsupported  by  ancient  testimony,  satisfies  better  than 
any  other  suggestion  the  requirements  of  the  case,  which 
demands  an  author  in  sympathy  with  Paul  in  his  general 
religious  attitude,  but  differing  from  him  in  temperament, 
training,  and  spiritual  experience,  and  consequently  in  his 
manner  of  conceiving  and  expressing  the  Christian  faith. 
Of  the  aim  of  the  Epistle  no  better  account  can  be  given 
than  the  traditional  one,  according  to  which  it  was  designed 


PRIMITIVE   CHRISTIANITT.  445 

to  preserve  a  community  of  Hebrew  Christians  from 
apostasy  at  a  time  of  special  trial,  arising  partly  from  out- 
ward tribulations,  partly  from  lack  of  true  insight  into  the 
genius  and  worth  of  the  Christian  religion.  All  other 
suggestions  seem  by  comparison  far-fetched  and  pointless. 

(3)  The  views  we  have  been  led  to  adopt  on  the  ques- 
tions discussed  in  this  chapter  in  a  large  measure  take 
away  the  foundation  for  the  imputation  of  theological 
tendency  to  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament.  The 
Tubingen  school,  as  is  well  known,  were  great  offenders 
here.  In  their  cut-and-dried  scheme,  every  book  took  its 
place  under  some  controversial  category,  and  every  writer 
had  to  serve  as  a  more  or  less  conscious  instrument  in 
connection  with  some  phase  of  the  great  dialectic  process. 
Thus,  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  was  written  at  a  time  when 
men  were  weary  of  the  long  strife,  and  would  be  thankful 
to  be  assured  that  it  was  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the 
founders  of  the  Church  had  been  seriously  at  variance. 
The  writer,  sympathising  with  this  feeling,  set  himself  to 
promote  union  by  composing  a  historical  romance  of  the 
apostolic  age.  To  create  the  desired  impression  he  adopted 
the  plan  of  making  Peter,  the  hero  of  the  first  part  of  the 
work,  act  in  the  catholic  spirit  of  Paul ;  and  Paul,  the  hero 
of  the  second  part,  act  in  the  accommodating  spirit  of 
Peter. 

A  theory  of  omnipresent  tendency  inevitably  acts  pre- 
judicially on  critical  inquiry  in  two  ways:  by  shaking 
confidence  in  the  truth  of  narratives  in  professedly  his- 
torical books,  and  by  imperiously  determining  the  dates  at 
which  particular  books  were  written.  The  more  tendency 
the  less  fact,  and  given  the  tendency  of  a  book  its  date  is 
approximately  fixed.  Thus,  to  return  to  the  book  of  Acts, 
its  aim  l)eing  to  create  a  pleasant  though  false  impression 
regarding  the  relations  of  the  apostles,  the  writer  had  to 
invent  his  facts,  real  history  supplying  no  such  incidents 
as  were  necessary  for  his  purpose.  Before  Baur's  time 
Schneckenburger  had  propounded  the  theory  of  the  apolo- 


446  APOLOOETICS. 

getic  aim  of  Acts,  and  suggested  that  an  frenical  pnrposa 
had  guided  the  writer  in  selecting  the  incidents  to  be 
recorded.  But  Baur,  in  adopting  the  theory  for  his  own  use, 
peremptorily  negatived  the  idea  of  selection,  and  insisted 
that  invention  alone  would  meet  the  exigencies  of  the  case. 
His  contention,  if  not  necessarily  valid,  at  least  illustrates 
well  how  surely  imputation  of  tendency  gravitates  toward 
denial  of  historicity.  Then  as  for  the  date,  the  book  of 
Acts  has  assigned  to  it  a  late  origin  by  the  mere  fact  of 
its  being  written  to  gratify  the  general  desire  for  peace,  the 
second  century  being  well  begun  before  men  had  got  into 
that  happy  mood. 

If  the  state  of  opinion  in  the  apostolic  age  was  such  as 
now  represented,  this  ingenious  theory  regarding  the  book 
in  question  tumbles  to  pieces  like  a  house  of  cards.  In 
that  case  it  would  not  be  necessary  for  the  historian  of  the 
doings  of  the  apostles  to  invent  situations  in  which  Peter 
should  appear  as  a  man  who  shared  the  views  of  Paul  as 
to  the  universal  destination  of  Christianity.  Why  should 
he  not  act  in  the  spirit  of  universalism  if  Paul  had  not  a 
monopoly  of  that  article?  And  why  impute  to  the  his- 
torian any  other  aim  than  that  of  recording  transactions 
which  he  knew  to  be  true  and  deemed  important  ?  Grant 
that  he  regarded  these  transactions  with  the  eye  of  a 
Panlinist,  enthusiastically  devoted  to  the  cause  of  Gentile 
Christianity ;  his  interest  was  not  on  that  account  neces- 
sarily theological  or  controversial,  but  might  be  simply 
religious.  And  what  time  would  be  more  appropriate  for 
recording  them  than  when  they  were  comparatively  recent, 
and  when  their  significance  was  only  beginning  to  dawn 
upon  the  mind  of  the  Church  ?  The  suggestion  does  not 
settle  the  question  as  to  the  date  of  composition,  but  it 
indicates  that  an  early  date  was  at  least  possible,  if  not 
probable. 

In  the  coarse  form  which  it  assumed  in  the  hands  of 
Dr.  Baur  and  his  followers,  the  theory  of  tendency  now 
finds  little  favour.     But  in  a  more  refined  form  it  still 


PBDfinVS  OHBISTZANITT.  447 

lives,  and  is  a  fraitfal  sonroe  of  bias  in  critical  qnestiona. 
Pfleiderer,  e.g.,  has  developed  a  new  Tendenx- Kritik  in 
connection  with  his  favourite  hypothesis  that  the  great 
phenomenon  of  primitive  Christianity  was  Paulinism  and 
its  later  developments.  The  one  respect  in  which  he 
improves  upon  the  work  of  his  predecessors  is,  that  the 
tendency  he  ascribes  to  New  Testament  writers  is  not,  on 
the  whole,  so  conscious  and  deliberate  as  the  Tiibingen 
school  represented  it  The  sentiments  of  a  later  age  are, 
he  thinks,  occasionally  ascribed  to  the  founders  of  the 
Church  involuntarily,  rather  than  with  any  conscious  in- 
tention, the  writers  being  unable  to  conceive  of  Jesus  and 
the  eleven  and  Paul  as  thinking  otherwise  than  according 
to  the  fashion  of  the  time  in  which  they  themselves  lived 
and  wrote.  But  in  some  instances  he  imputes  theological 
motive  almost  as  broadly  as  Dr.  Baur.  Thus  he  represents 
Mark's  Gospel,  in  his  judgment  the  earliest  of  the  three 
synoptics,  as  written  in  order  to  complete  and  ground  the 
Pauline  Gospel  by  a  historical  account  of  the  life,  teaching, 
and  death  of  Jesus.*  Matthew,  on  the  other  hand,  the  latest 
of  the  three,  as  he  treats  it,  is  little  else  than  an  endeavour 
to  remodel  the  evangelic  history  in  accordance  with  the 
principles  of  Deutero-Paulinism,  after  it  had  become  the 
creed  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Elimination  of  intention 
in  this  case  is  impossible,  because  the  writer  of  the  first 
canonical  Gospel  is  supposed  to  have  the  second  and  third 
Gospels  under  his  eye.  The  dates  assigned  to  Mark  and 
Matthew  are  in  accordance  with  their  supposed  aims.  The 
former  is  conceived  to  have  been  written  not  very  long 
after  Paul's  death,  the  latter  is  relegated  to  the  middle  of 
the  second  century. 

This  new  criticism  of  the  Gospels  is  not  less  violently 
theoretical  than  the  older  type  which  it  aspires  to  super- 
sede, and  it  is  certainly  as  little  entitled  to  implicit 
credence. 

>  VrekiriatmOumk,  p.  4Uk 


448  APOLOGEnOflL 

CHAPTER  Vin. 

THB  SYNOPTICAL  OOSPELS. 

LlTERATUBK. — H-  J.  Holtzmann,  Die  Si/noptisehen  Evan' 
gelien;  Weiss,  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament,  Dai 
Matthdus  Evangelium,  and  Das  Markus  Evangelium  (vide 
also  Bleek's  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament,  which, 
though  older  than  than  of  Weiss,  is  in  some  respects  more 
satisfactory);  Bruce,  The  Kingdom  of  God;  Pfleiderer, 
UrchrisierUhum  (vide  also  Martineau,  Seat  of  Authority  in 
Religion,  in  which  he  largely  follows  Pfleiderer's  critical 
verdicts);  Marshall,  "  The  Aramaic  Gospel "  in  The  Expositor, 
1891 ;  J.  Estlin  Carpenter,  The  Synoptic  Gospels,  1890. 

There  are  important  questions  relating  to  these  Gospels 
with  which  general  Apologetic  is  not  directly  concerned. 
The  problem,  e.g.,  presented  by  their  verbal  resemblances 
and  differences,  and  the  literary  criticism  connected  there- 
with, lie  outside  our  plan,  and  belong  to  Introduction. 
The  apologist  is  chiefly  interested  in  the  question  of 
historicity. 

In  this  connection  much  weight  must  be  attached  to  the 
ancient  tradition.  The  two  statements  of  Papias,  reported 
by  Eusebius,  respecting  the  reputed  authors  of  the  first 
two  Gospels,  are  specially  entitled  to  serious  attention.  In 
the  order  in  which  they  are  given  by  the  historian  they 
are  as  follow :  "  Mark  being  the  interpreter  of  Peter 
wrote  carefully,  though  not  in  order,  as  he  remembered 
them,  the  things  spoken  or  done  by  Christ ;  *'  "  Matthew 
wrote  the  Logia  in  the  Hebrew  language,  and  each  one 
interpreted  these  as  he  could."  ^  Till  recent  times  it  was 
universally  taken  for  granted  that  the  two  evangelic  writ- 
ings referred  to  by  Papias  were  our  canonical  Matthew  and 
Mark,  the  first  Gospel  as  we  have  it  being  Matthew's 
Hebrew  original  done  into  Greek.  Modern  critics  for  the 
>  BoMbii,  ffistoria  Ecdetiantica.  Ub.  UL  4.  89. 


THE  SYNOPTICAL  GOSPEUB.  449 

most  part  dissent  from  the  traditional  view,  but  not  to 

the  extent  of  treating  the  statements  of  Papias  as  of  no 
account.  They  believe  that  Matthew  and  Mark  did  write 
books  relating  to  the  ministry  of  Jesus  as  Papias  declares. 
With  reference  to  Mark  critics  are  not  agreed  whether  the 
book  he  wrote  was  our  canonical  Gospel  bearing  his  name, 
or  was  related  to  it  as  a  first  sketch  to  a  revised  edition, 
the  ground  for  the  doubt  being  that  the  canonical  Mark 
seems  to  be  a  somewhat  onesided  record  of  the  things  done 
by  Jesus,  rather  than  a  balanced  account  both  of  things 
done  and  of  things  said.*  With  reference  to  Matthew,  the 
prevailing  opinion  is  that  he  did  not  write  our  first  Gospel, 
but  a  book  consisting  chiefly  of  sayings  of  Jesus,  furnished 
probably  with  brief  historical  introductions  explaining  the 
occasions  on  which  they  were  uttered,  though  to  what 
length  the  historical  element  extended  is  matter  of  dis- 
putation.' These  two  writings,  Mark's  narrative  and 
Matthew's  Logia,  critics  regard  as  the  two  chief  sources  of 
the  Synoptical  Gospels,  the  former  of  the  incidents  common 
to  the  three,  the  latter  of  the  sayings  common  to  "  Matthew  ** 
and  "  Luke."  As  such  they  form  the  solid  foundation  of 
the  evangelic  history,  the  guarantee  that  when  two  or  three 
of  the  Synoptical  Gospels  agree  in  their  report  of  what 
Jesus  said  or  did  we  are  in  contact  with  fact,  not  fiction. 

In  the  value  thus  assigned  to  the  ancient  tradition  all 
men  of  sober  unbiassed  judgment  will  be  disposed  to 
acquiesca  They  will  read  the  Gospels  with  the  comfort- 
able assurance  that  for  the  words  of  Jesus  common  to  the 
first  and  third  they  have  one  apostle  as  voucher,  Matthew, 
and  for  the  deeds  of  Jesus  common  to  the  three,  another 

^  H.  J.  Holtzmann  {Die  Synoptischen  Emngetien)  is  the  leading  advooate 
•fan  Urmarhua. 

'  Weiss  strives  to  magnify  the  amount  of  the  historical  element  in  the 
Logia.  Holtzmann,  on  the  other  hand,  ascribes  to  the  Urmarhus  a  larger 
amount  of  the  didactic  element  than  is  contained  in  the  canonical  Mark. 
The  question  at  issue  between  the  two  critics  is  which  of  the  two  writings 
referred  to  by  Papias  was  the  chief  source  for  our  Synoptical  Gk>apeli,  Weisi 
claiming  the  distinotioa  for  Matthew'i  Logia,  Holtzmaaa  Hoc  Market 
doooment. 

2l 


450  APOLOGETICS. 

apostle's  authority,  that  of  Peter,  of  whose  preaching, 
according  to  Papias,  Mark's  narrative  was  a  digest.  Criti- 
cism which  disregards,  or  treats  as  of  little  value,  such 
precious  morsels  of  information  as  those  preserved  by 
Eusebius  is  open  to  the  suspicion  of  being  under  the  in- 
fluence of  d  priori  bias.  Such  bias  is  very  apparent  when  it 
is  given  as  a  reason  for  doubting  the  connection  between 
Mark's  narrative  and  Peter's  preaching,  that  the  former 
contains  a  number  of  "  legendary  and  allegorical  miracle- 
histories,"  or  when,  in  defiance  of  the  express  statement  of 
Papias  that  Matthew  wrote  a  book  of  Logia,  it  is  held  to 
be  altogether  doubtful  whether  the  first  and  third  evan- 
gelists drew  any  of  their  material  from  that  source,  and 
whether  we  do  not  rather  owe  their  reports  of  supposed 
sayings  of  Jesus  largely  to  their  powers  of  literary 
invention.* 

The  naturalistic  bias,  which  doubts  the  historicity  of  the 
miraculous  element,  one  can  understand ;  but  it  seems  pure 
wantonness  to  doubt  the  authenticity  of  sayings  ascribed 
to  Jesus  by  two  evangelists,  and  intrinsically  credible  as 
utterances  of  the  Master.  Why,  for  example,  hesitate  to 
take  the  remarkable  passage,  beginning  "  I  thank  Thee,  0 
Father,"*  as  a  bond  fide  report  of  solemn  words  spoken  by 
Jesus  at  some  important  crisis  in  His  life  ?  Yet  Pfleiderer 
invites  us  to  see  in  this  passage  a  hymn  of  victory  invented 
by  Luke,  and  borrowed  from  him  by  the  author  of  the  First 
Gk>spel;  a  hymn  in  which  the  Pauline  mission  to  the 
heathen  is  celebrated  as  the  victory  of  Christ  over  Satan's 
dominion  in  the  world,  and  Paul's  cardinal  doctrine  of  the 
knowledge  of  God  and  of  His  Son  being  hid  from  the  wise 
and  revealed  to  the  unwise  finds  suitable  recognition. 
This  is  tendency-criticism  run  mad,  the  tendency  at  work 
being  to  make  Paulinism  in  one  form  or  another  the  one 
g7«at  fact  and  factor  in  nascent  Christianity. 

Theoretic  critics  tell,  each  one  in  turn,  their  own  sUaj 

^  So  Pfleidenr,  vUU  UrehrittetUkvm,  pp^  414,  41C 
•MaXLMLU;  Lukes.  21. 


XHK  SYNOPTICAL   GOSPELS.  461 

very  plausibly,  but  it  helps  to  deliver  simple  readers  from 
the  spell  of  their  enchantment,  to  compare  the  results  at 
which  they  respectively  arrive.  Such  a  comparison  does 
not  inspire  confidence  in  the  methods  and  verdicts  of 
Tendem-Kritik  as  practised  by  the  experts.  This  may  be 
illustrated  by  placing  side  by  side  the  views  of  Baur  and 
Pfleiderer  respecting  the  Synoptical  Gospels.  Take  first  the 
order  in  which  these  Gospels  were  written.  Baur  arranges 
them  thus :  Matthew,  Luke,  Mark ;  Pfleiderer  simply 
reverses  the  order,  so  that  it  runs :  Mark,  Luke,  Matthew. 
With  reference  to  the  historic  value  of  the  Gospels  the  two 
masters  are  equally  divergent  in  opinion.  In  the  esteem 
of  the  earlier  critic  Matthew  is  entitled  to  the  highest 
measure  of  credit;  for  the  later  he  possesses  the  least 
Their  judgments  as  to  the  tendencies  dominant  in  the 
several  Gospels  are  curiously  discrepant.  Baur  thinks 
Mark  is  studiously  neutral,  neither  universalistic  nor 
Judaistic;  Pfleiderer  thinks  he  is  out  and  out  Pauline. 
Matthew  for  the  former  represents  a  Judaistic  conception 
of  Christianity  irenically  inclined  towards  Paulinism  ;  for 
the  latter  it  is  the  mouthpiece  of  a  Catholic  Church-con- 
sciousness as  remote  from  the  narrowness  of  Judaism  as 
the  Fourth  Gospel  In  reference  to  Luke  the  two  critics 
are  more  nearly  at  one,  it  being  possible  for  two  roads  going 
in  the  most  opposite  direction  to  meet  at  a  single  point 
In  both  critical  systems  Luke  is  a  Unions- Pauliner,  a 
Paulinist  with  most  friendly  feelings  towards  Judaists,  and 
bent  on  seeing  a  good  side  in  every  party. 

Such  glaring  contradictions  tend  to  throw  discredit 
on  all  criticism  dominated  by  cut-and-dried  theories,  and 
might  seem  to  justify  total  disregard  of  the  arguments  by 
which  the  theorists  seek  to  establish  their  conflicting  views. 
And  if  the  aim  of  the  apologist  were  merely  controversial 
he  might  save  himself  trouble  by  leaving  the  advocates  of 
rival  critical  schemes  to  refute  each  other.  But  his  main 
purpose  is  to  establish  faith  in  the  historical  worth  of  the 
Gospels,  and  sometimes  important  aid  towards  the  attain- 


452  APOLOOBTICS. 

ment  cf  that  end  may  be  obtained  through  the  study  of 
unbelieving  attacks,  even  though  they  may  be  far  from 
formidable  in  their  logic,  and  destined  to  exercise  only  a 
transient  influence  on  opinion.  On  this  ground  it  may  be 
worth  while  to  devote  a  little  attention  to  recent  critical 
developments. 

The  general  reflection  may  here  be  premised  that  it  is 
seldom  difl&cult  for  the  promoters  of  ambitious  critical 
theories,  even  when  these  are  directly  antagonistic  to  each 
other,  to  adduce  some  facts  in  support  of  their  views.  It 
is,  indeed,  a  poor  theory  that  cannot  find  at  least  a  few 
phenomena  that  lend  plausibility  to  its  leading  positions. 
Baur  showed  great  ingenuity  in  discovering  features  in  the 
Grospels  that  seemed  to  bear  out  his  reading  of  their 
theological  tendencies,  and  in  doing  this  he  rendered  per- 
manent service  by  directing  attention  to  characteristics 
which  had  previously  been  to  a  great  extent  overlooked. 
"We  need  not  grudge  the  same  praise  to  the  most  recent 
worker  in  the  same  field.  Pfleiderer  has  been  as  successful, 
for  example,  in  pointing  out  traces  of  Paulinism  in  Mark, 
as  Baur  was,  in  his  day,  in  demonstrating  the  prudential 
neutrality  of  the  same  Gospel  With  an  eye  sharpened  by 
the  desire  to  find  materials  to  justify  inductively  a  foregone 
conclusion,  he  has  detected  in  quite  a  number  of  instances 
more  or  less  resemblance  between  words  imputed  by,  the 
evangelist  to  Jesus  and  well-known  Pauline  doctrinea 

Thus  in  commencing  His  ministry  Jesus  says :  "  Eepent 
and  believe  the  gospel"  Here,  remarks  the  theoretical  critic, 
as  in  Paul,  faith  in  the  God-given  message  of  salvation  is  the 
first  demand.^  In  the  narrative  of  the  first  announcement 
of  the  passion  several  Pauline  echoes  are  discovered.  Thus 
when  the  evangelist  remarks  concerning  the  explicit  char- 
acter of  the  announcement  that  Jesus  spake  the  word  openly, 
he  is  supposed  to  have  in  mind  Paul's  "  word  of  the  crosa" 
The  terms  in  which  Jesus  rebukes  Peter :  "  Thou  mindest  not 
the  things  of  God  but  the  things  of  men,"  are  suggested  by 
ihoee  in  which  Paul  declares  that  his  gospel,  though  it  be 

*  Urchrittenthwn,  p.  362. 


THE   SYNOPTICAL   GOSPEUL  i6S 

^he  vnsdom  of  Gkxl,  is  foolishneBs  and  an  offence  in  the  eyes 
of  men.  The  demand  of  the  Master,  that  all  His  disciples 
shall  take  up  their  cross  and  follow  Him,  is  obviously  an 
echo  of  the  characteristically  Pauline  idea  of  the  participa- 
tion of  the  believer  in  the  crucifixion  of  the  Eedeemer,  all 
the  more  that  before  the  event  Jesus  could  not  have  ex- 
pressed Himself  in  such  language.^  Once  more,  the  incident 
of  the  two  sons  of  Zebedee  teems  with  Pauline  allusions. 
Every  word  of  Jesus  on  that  memorable  occasion  recalls  a 
Pauline  utteranca  "  To  sit  on  my  right  hand  and  on  my 
left  hand  is  not  mine  to  give,"  echoes  Paul's  doctrine  of 
election ;  "  Whosoever  of  you  will  be  the  chiefest  shall  be 
servant  of  all,"  is  a  reminiscence  of  Paul's  statement  con- 
cerning himself  that  though  free  from  all  men  yet  he  had 
made  himself  servant  unto  all.  And  the  great  word  con- 
cerning the  Son  of  man  coming  not  to  be  ministered  unto 
but  to  minister,  and  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many, 
corresponds  so  closely  to  Pauline  expressions  concerning 
the  self-impoverishment,  self-emptying,  and  self-humiliation 
of  the  heavenly  Christ,  that  the  co-operation  at  least  of 
Pauline  influence  in  the  formation  of  the  saying  maj 
legitimately  be  suspected." 

These  instances  suffice  to  exemplify  the  method  of  proof. 
Suppose  we  allow  almost  all  that  is  contended  for,  and  in 
doing  so  we  should  be  going  beyond  the  limits  of  truth, 
what  does  it  amount  to  ?  To  this,  that  there  are  corre- 
spondences between  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  as  reported  by  the 
evangelists,  and  the  teaching  of  Paul  But  was  not  such 
correspondence  intrinsically  probable  ?  Was  it  not  to  be 
expected  that  men  like  Jesus  and  Paul  should  think  alike 
on  the  great  fundamental  truths  of  religion,  such  as  the 
vital  significance  of  faith,  the  necessity  of  self-denial,  and 
the  connection  between  moral  greatness  and  the  humility 
of  love  ?  Such  truths  are  the  great  commonplaces  of 
biblical  religion,  held  and  taught  with  one  consent  by  all 
inspired  men  whose  thoughts  are  preserved  in  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  agreement  in  them  is  no  proof  of  dependence 
of  one  upon  another.  And  if  in  the  cases  of  Jesus,  as 
*  Urekristmthum,  p.  384  '  Ibid.  p.  395. 


454  APOLOGETICS. 

reported,  and  Paul,  there  be  in  some  instances  reason  to 
suspect  dependence,  the  question  is  always  open,  On  which 
side  is  it  ?  Is  the  evangelist's  report  of  Christ's  teaching 
coloured  by  Paulinism,  or  does  Paul's  teaching  now  and 
then  betray  traces  of  the  influence  of  an  acquaintance  more 
or  less  extensive  with  the  sayings  of  Jesus  ?  The  possi- 
bility of  the  former  alternative  is  not  denied,  all  that  is 
here  suggested  is  that  a  mere  general  correspondence  does 
not  settle  the  question  either  way. 

It  may  be  added  that  in  none  of  the  cases  above  cited  is 
there  the  slightest  ground  for  alleging  Pauline  influence,  nor 
would  any  one  that  had  not  a  theory  to  defend  ever  imagine 
that  there  was.  Every  one  of  the  sayings  possesses  intrinsic 
probability  as  an  utterance  of  Christ,  not  even  excepting 
that  concerning  cross-bearing  as  the  law  of  discipleship. 
Death  by  crucifixion  did  not  begin  with  the  case  of  Jesus 
He  had  heard  of  it,  possibly  He  had  seon  it  before;  He  kne^ 
it  to  be  the  most  ignominious,  painful,  and  repulsive  form  in 
which  to  encounter  the  last  enemy,  and  even  though  He  had 
not  been  aware  that  He  was  to  meet  His  own  end  in  that 
way,  He  might  have  spoken  as  He  did  by  way  of  expressing 
the  general  thought  that  the  faithful  disciple  was  he  who, 
for  truth's  sake,  was  willing  to  endure  a  felon's  fate. 

The  foregoing  observations  have  their  fuU  force  in  refer- 
ence to  the  so-called  **  Hymn  of  Victory  "  :  "I  thank  Thee, 
0  Father."  The  genuineness  of  this  utterance  might  be 
supposed  to  be  sufficiently  guaranteed  by  its  being  common 
to  Matthew  and  Luke,  and  therefore  presumably  taken 
from  the  apostolic  book  of  Logia.  But  not  to  insist  on 
this,  I  simply  dispute  the  conclusiveness  of  the  proof  that 
it  is  a  free  composition  of  the  Pauline  evangelists  based  on 
characteristic  utterances  of  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  and 
on  the  signal  success  of  his  career.  The  affinity  between 
this  great  word  of  Jesus  and  the  teaching  of  Paul  ia  fully 
admitted;  it  might  be  even  more  strongly  asserted.  It 
might  be  pointed  out,  for  example,  that  from  that  word  we 
may  learn  the   nature  of  the  spirit  of  adoptictn  of  which 


XHM  SYNOPTICAL  OOSPKUL         466 

Paul  speaks,  the  characteristic  marks  of  a  true  filial  relation 
to  God.  Jesus  the  Son  in  the  hour  of  trial  unbosoms 
Himself  to  His  Father,  and  in  doing  so  reveals  a  spirit  of 
submission,  trust,  and  peaceful  fellowship  towards  God,  and 
of  independence  towards  the  world,  perfected  in  His  own 
case,  and  capable  of  being  imparted  to  those  who  follow 
Him  as  their  Master.  The  whole  utterance  is  thoroughly 
in  sympathy  with  Paul's  teaching  in  Romans  viii.,  but  it  is 
not  Pauline  in  the  sense  of  being  a  composition  put  into 
Christ's  mouth  by  an  evangelist  whose  mind  was  steeped 
in  Pauline  doctrine.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  according  to 
all  indications,  a  true  saying  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  It  is  in 
keeping  with  all  we  know  of  His  mind,  and  it  perfectly 
suits  the  situation. 

Jesus  always  spoke  of  God  as  Father,  and  of  Himself  as 
Son.  He  acted  uniformly  on  the  belief  that  disciples  and 
citizens  of  the  kingdom  were  to  be  got  rather  from  among 
the  ignorant,  despised  people  of  the  land,  than  from  among 
the  men  of  the  law.  He  always  had  faith  in  His  own 
future,  and  believed  that  God's  kingdom  would  come  bring- 
ing a  crown  to  His  head.  And  He  ever  promised  to  His 
faithful  ones  participation  in  His  own  great  fortunes: 
crowns,  thrones,  kingdoms,  a  full  unstinted  share  in  the 
privilege  of  sonship.  As  for  the  situation,  it  is  probably 
more  correctly  indicated  in  Matthew  than  in  Luke.  In  the 
former  Gospel  the  word  is  represented  by  impKcation  as 
spoken  in  an  hour  of  trial,  when  Jesus  is  made  very  con- 
scious of  the  contemptuous  unbelief  of  the  influential  in 
Israel ;  in  the  latter,  on  the  other  hand,  it  appears  as  spoken 
in  an  hour  of  joy,  viz.  on  the  return  of  the  seventy  with 
their  glowing  reports  of  the  signal  success  of  their  mission. 
The  setting  of  the  word  in  Luke,  and  the  mission  of  the 
seventy,  or  at  least  the  prominence  given  thereto,  may  be 
regarded  as  indications  of  the  Paulinism  of  the  third  evan- 
gelist, who,  while  faithful  in  reporting  Christ's  sayings, 
seems  to  have  exercised  discretion  to  a  certain  extent  in 
fixing  their  historical  occasions.  The  devotional  utterance 
of  Jesus,  while  not  unsuitable  for  a  season  of  joy,  is  pecu- 
liarly suited  to  a  time  of  trial,  when  the  unbelief  of  the 
world  makes  Him  fall  back  on  the  consolations  of  His  per- 


456  ▲POLOOBTICS. 

Bonal  relations  to  God,  and  provokes  ti  "  assertion  of  Eia 
importance  as  Mediator,  and  of  Hia  entire  independence  of 
the  patronage  and  favour  of  men  priding  themselves  on 
their  wisdom. 

The  unceremonious  manner  in  which  so  very  important 
A  saying  is  taken  away  from  Jesus  and  credited  to  the 
evangelist,  compels  us  to  consider  on  what  principles 
criticism,  not  bent  on  proving  a  theory  as  to  the  course  of 
early  Church  history,  is  to  proceed  in  deciding  questions  of 
genuineness.  Now,  one  very  obvious  principle  would  seem 
to  be  that  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  an  evangelist  will  not 
lightly  depart  from  his  professed  design  in  writing  a 
Gospel.  The  good  faith  of  the  evangelists  is  now  happily 
admitted  on  all  hands.  There  is,  and  there  is  room  for, 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  what  is  compatible  with  good 
faith  and  good  conscience.  That  may  vary  according  to  the 
custom  of  the  time  in  which  an  author  lives.  But  if  any 
New  Testament  writer  plainly  intimates  his  intention  to 
proceed  upon  a  plan,  it  may  be  taken  for  granted  that  he 
will  faithfully  adhere  to  it  to  the  best  of  his  knowledge  and 
judgment  Applying  this  remark  to  the  synoptical  evan- 
gelists, we  find  that  Matthew  and  Mark  do  not  admit  us 
into  their  secret,  though  their  whole  manner  is  that  of  men 
stating  what  they  believe  to  be  facts.  Luke,  however, 
does,  in  his  preface,  take  the  reader  into  his  confidence,  aijd 
carefully  explains  to  him  his  aim  and  method  as  an  author. 
Without  straining  his  words,  we  are  entitled  to  infer  from 
that  preface  that  Luke  is  going  to  tell  us  what  can  be 
ascertained,  from  written  sources  or  otherwise,  concerning 
the  words  and  deeds  of  Jesua  He  alludes  to  the  work  of 
predecessors  as  a  help  in  his  task,  he  refers  to  the  twelve 
as  the  original  source  of  information,  and  he  indicates  it  as 
his  desire  to  enable  his  readers  to  attain  certain  knowledge 
in  the  matters  of  which  he  writes.  All  this  surely  reveals 
a  purpose  to  write,  as  far  as  possible,  history. 

This  is  a  most  important  conclusion,  which  carries  much 
along  with  it. 


THE  SYNOPTICAL   QOSPMA  467 

In  the  first  place,  it  covers  as  with  a  shield  the 
historicity  of  Mark.  That  Mark  was  one  of  Luke's  sources 
is  generally  admitted  by  critics.^  It  is  a  point,  indeed,  on 
which  any  one  can  easily  satisfy  himself,  for  it  requires 
only  an  attentive  perusal  of  the  two  (Jospels  to  perceive 
that  Luke  has  reproduced  in  his  pages  the  substance  of 
Mark,  and  often  in  the  same  order.  It  follows  from  this 
that  Luke  regarded  Mark  as  a  good  source,  good  in  the 
sense  of  being  a  reliable  report  of  the  apostolic  tradition,  a 
faithful  record  of  what  had  been  learned  from  the  eye- 
witnesses and  ministers  of  the  word. 

But  the  conclusion  drawn  from  Luke's  preface  covers 
more  than  that  portion  of  his  Gospel  which  is  identical 
with  Mark.  It  covers  also  that  which  is  over  and  above, 
the  large  amount  of  material,  chiefly  consisting  of  say- 
ings of  Jesus,  found  in  Luke's  pages,  to  which  there  is 
nothing  corresponding  in  the  Second  Gospel,  or  even  in 
the  First  Luke's  prefatory  statement  entitles  us  to  hold 
that  he  had  sources  for  these  sayings,  as  well  as  for  the 
deeds  for  which  Mark  was  his  chief  voucher,  and  that  he 
believed  them  to  be  true  words  of  the  Lord.  In  view  of 
that  statement,  to  say  that  the  greater  part  of  the  material 
in  Luke's  Gospel,  in  excess  of  Mark,  has  no  distinct  his- 
torical source,  but  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  literary  art  of 
the  author,  is  to  trifle  with  his  good  name,  and  to  magnify 
his  intellect  at  the  expense  of  his  conscience.  If  we  are  to 
take  the  evangelist  seriously,  we  must  hold  that  he  had  a 
source  for  the  "  Hymn  of  Victory,"  and  for  the  many 
beautiful  words,  such  as  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son, 
found  only  in  his  Gospel,  as  well  as  for  the  parable  of  the 
Sower,  or  for  the  feeding  of  the  five  thousand. 

Luke's  shield  is  broad  enough  to  cover  even  the  head  of 

Matthew.     When  we  can  control  the  first  evangelist,  as  in 

*  Pfleiderer,  Urchri»terUhum,  p.  416,  says :  That  Mark  waa  one  of  Lake's 
forerunners,  whom  he  wished  to  surpass  in  completeness  and  orderly 
arrangement  is  certain,  and  is  hardly  doubted  now  by  any  one.  The 
nai-rative  and  order  of  Mark  form  the  groundwork  and  frame  into  whieh 
Loke  interpolates  his  additional  materiaL 


458  ▲P0L00ETIC8. 

all  matter  common  to  him  with  Mark  and  Luke,  or  with 
Luke  alone,  we  find  that  he  gives  substantially  the  same 
account  In  these  portions  of  his  Gospel  he  obviously 
means  to  write  history.  He  is  not  romancing  or  writing 
fiction  for  a  purpose.  This  being  the  character  he  has 
earned  when  in  company,  he  ia  entitled  to  the  benefit  of  it 
when  he  is  alone.  Like  Luke,  he  is  sometimes  alone,  as  in 
the  gracious  invitation,  "  Come  unto  me " ;  in  the  logion 
concerning  the  Church,  "  On  this  rock  " ;  and  in  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  last  judgment.  We  must  refuse  to  believe 
that  these  are  compositions  of  the  evangelist,  simply  because 
when  we  have  the  means  of  testing  him  we  find  that  he  is 
not  a  man  given  to  inventing,  but  to  simple,  honest,  matter- 
of-fact  narration.* 

Yet,  withal,  it  must  be  admitted  that  neither  Matthew 
nor  any  of  his  brother  evangelists  is  a  mere  chronicler. 
For  the  writers  of  the  Gospels  the  religious  interest  is 
supreme.  Their  temper  is  that  of  the  prophet  rather  than 
that  of  the  scribe.  They  are  truly  inspired  men,  and  as 
such  their  main  concern  is  not  to  give  scrupulously  exact 
accounts  of  facts,  but  to  make  the  moral  and  religious 
significance  of  the  facts  apparent.  Hence  a  considerable 
amount  of  freedom  in  reporting  may  be  noted  even  in 
Luke,  who  by  his  preface  seems  to  lay  himself  under 
obligation  to  aim  at  exactitude  in  narration.  It  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  in  execution  he  forgets,  or  is  untrue  to,  his 
preconceived  plan.  We  ought  rather  to  regard  it  as  part  of 
his  plan  to  relate  the  facts  of  Christ's  ministry  so  that  they 
shall  be  a  true  mirror  to  the  spirit  of  Christ,  and  give 
readers  a  just  and  beneficent  conception  of  His  character. 

*  The  ffracious  invitation,  according  to  Pfleiderer,  is  a  compcsition  of  th« 
evangelist's,  based  on  a  passage  in  the  Wisdom  of  Sirach  (ii.  23) ;  the 
logion,  "On  thiB  rock,"  is  simply  the  expression  of  the  Catholic  Church 
oonsciousness  as  it  took  shape  about  the  middle  of  the  second  century ; 
the  judgment  programme,  in  Matt,  ixv.,  is  a  beautiful  witness  to  the 
ethical  humane  way  of  thinking  of  the  evangelist  and  of  the  age  in  which  h« 
lived,  according  to  which  the  lack  of  Christian  faith  in  the  heathen  is  com- 
pensated by  Christlike  love,  and  the  dogmatic  nniversalism  of  Paul  is  replaced 
»y  an  ethical  ttniversalism.      Vide  Urchrittenthum,  pp.  613,  520,  532. 


THE   SYNOPTICAL   QOSPEIA  469 

Hence  omissions  of  narratives  contained  in  his  sourceg 
which  might  be  misunderstood,  such  as  the  story  of  the 
Syrophenician  woman  reported  by  Mark ;  also  of  duplicate 
narratives  which  might  be  regarded  as  superfluous,  such  as 
the  second  feeding  of  the  multitude,  also  reported  by  Mark, 
to  make  room  for  new  matter  of  a  pronouncedly  evangelic 
type,  acts  and  words  of  grace,  which  to  the  evangelist 
appeared  most  characteristic  of  Jesus.  Hence  the  toning 
down  of  the  severer  aspect  of  Christ's  teaching,  and 
especially  a  great  reduction  in  the  amount  of  the  anti- 
Pharisaical  element,  as  compared  with  Matthew.  Hence, 
once  more,  a  distinct  colouring  in  the  reports  of  Christ's 
sayings,  so  as  to  make  the  gracious  evangelic  drift  of  His 
doctrine  more  conspicuous.^ 

Such  phenomena  of  the  adaptation  of  facts  to  the  service 
of  mirroring  the  spirit,  suggest  the  question.  How  far  might 
this  process  be  carried  ?  Can  we,  for  example,  conceive  of 
an  evangelist  stepping  out  of  the  actual  into  the  possible,  in 
order  that  he  might  have  ampler  scope  for  the  embodiment 
of  his  conception  of  Jesus  than  the  grudging  data  of  reality 
supplied,  especially  in  the  case  of  a  life  of  so  short  dura- 
tion ?  With  writings  adopting  this  method  of  setting 
forth  ideal  truth  we  are  very  familiar  in  modem  times, 
and  it  has  been  consecrated  to  the  service  of  religion  by 

*  On  these  pHenomena  of  Lake's  Gospel,  vide  introduction  to  my  work, 
TTie  Kingdom  of  Ood.  In  that  introduction,  as  in  the  above  remarks,  it  is 
assumed  that  the  variations  in  Luke's  reports  of  oar  Lord's  words,  as  com- 
pared with  Matthew's,  are  due  to  the  religious  idiosyncrasy  of  the  writer, 
and  his  care  for  the  edification  of  his  readers.  It  has  recently  been  attempted 
to  explain  many  of  the  phenomena  of  variation  by  the  hypothesis  of  an  Ara- 
maic source,  in  which  many  of  the  words  were  ambiguous  and  could  be  taken 
in  different  senses  by  persons  consulting  the  source.  Vide  Professor  Marshall's 
articles  in  The  Expositor,  1891.  This  may  solve  some  of  the  problems, 
bat  by  no  means  aU.  Luke's  variations  have  a  common  character.  This 
could  not  be  the  result  of  accident ;  it  brings  in  the  element  of  preference, 
either  in  Luke  or  in  the  traditional  reading  he  followed,  or  in  both.  The 
view  given  in  the  text  further  implies  the  secondary  character  of  Lake's 
reports  as  compared  with  Matthew's.  Pfleiderer  labours  to  establish  the 
contrary  view,  bat  he  overlooks  many  of  the  facts  bearing  on  th«  qnestioB. 
Vidt  Daa  Urchristenthum,  pp.  478-543. 


460  AP0L0GBTIC8. 

some  well-known  classics.  Ancient  literature  likewise 
supplies  some  instances,  such  as  the  Dialogues  of  Plato, 
wherein  is  exhibited  an  ideal  picture  of  Socrates,  and  the 
book  of  Job  in  the  Hebrew  canon.  A  priori  it  is  not 
inconceivable  that  the  method  might  be  applied  to  Jesus. 
A  disciple  might  say  to  himself:  I  desire  to  show  my 
beloved  Master  as  He  appeared  to  me,  and  for  this  purpose 
I  shall  not  only  repoit  what  I  saw  Him  do  and  heard  Him 
say,  but  also  indicate  what  He  would  have  done  and 
,3aid  in  circumstances  which  might  have  occurred,  but  did 
not  actually  occur.  Viewing  the  matter  in  the  abstract, 
we  are  not  perhaps  entitled  to  negative  dogmatically  as 
inadmissible  such  use  of  ideal  situations  for  evangelic  pur- 
poses. One  thing  we  are  entitled  to  insist  on  is  that 
whatever  method  an  evangelist  employs  for  his  purpose,, 
he  shall  be  faithful  to  the  spirit.  The  only  justification  for 
the  introduction  of  ideal  elements  would  be  that  they 
enabled  one  holding  up  the  mirror  to  Jesus  to  show  His 
character  more  adequately  on  all  possible  sides.  And  in 
no  case  would  inspiration  be  more  needful  than  to  enable 
an  evangelist  to  use  the  ideal  method  wisely,  so  as  to  be 
absolutely  faithful  to  the  mind  and  spirit  of  Him  whom  he 
undertook  to  portray. 

It  is  well  known  that  in  the  judgment  of  some  we 
have  an  actual  instance  of  this  method  applied  to  the  life 
of  our  Lord  in  the  case  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  That  view 
will  fall  to  be  considered  hereafter.  Meantime  we  have  to 
inquire  whether  there  be  any  reason  for  thinking  that  the 
synoptical  evangelists,  all  or  any  of  them,  have  used  the 
ideal  method  to  any  extent 

As  already  indicated,  it  is  not  a  question  as  to  the  legi- 
timacy of  the  method,  but  of  the  actual  intention  of  any  of 
the  evangelists  to  use  it.  Now,  viewing  the  matter  in  that 
light,  it  must  be  admitted  that  there  is  no  trace  of  any  such 
intention  in  the  first  three  Gospels.  The  evidence  all  points 
in  the  opposite  direction.  Th<^  problem  the  synoptists  set 
themselves  was  not :  given  a  clear  insight  into  the  spirit  of 


THB  SYNOPTICAL  OOSPEU3.  461 

Jesus  to  show  it  to  others  by  a  free  use  of  incidents  real 
or  ideal,  but  given  a  sufficient  collection  of  real  facts  so  to 
set  tbem  in  a  continuous  narrative  that  the  thoughtful 
reader  shall  gradually  attain  a  true  insight  into  the  spirit 
of  Jesus.  Their  narratives  are  in  their  intention  objectively 
historical ;  if  any  legendary  element  has  found  its  way  into 
their  pages  it  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  tradition,  not  as  an 
invention.  This  is  the  view  naturally  suggested  by  Luke's 
preface,  and  borne  out  by  the  whole  character  of  these  three 
Gospela 

There  is  one  instance  in  Luke  in  which  it  might  with 
plausibility  be  alleged  that  the  ideal  method  has  been 
resorted  to:  the  story  of  the  anointing  in  the  house  of 
Simon  the  Pharisee.  This,  it  may  be  said,  it  has  indeed 
often  been  said,  is  simply  Luke's  version  of  the  story  of 
Mary  of  Bethany  related  by  Mark,  so  altered  as  to  make  it 
serve  the  purpose  of  showing  in  a  signal  instance  the  grace 
of  Jesus  towards  the  sinful,  in  all  its  touching  tenderness 
and  magical  transforming  power.  And  without  doubt  the 
serviceableness  of  the  incident  to  this  end  constituted  its 
attraction  for  Luke,  and  supplied  the  motive  for  its  being 
introduced  into  his  narrative.  And  equally  without  doubt 
the  story  as  he  gives  it,  whether  a  real  or  an  ideal  occur- 
rence, is  thoroughly  true  to  the  spirit  of  Jesus.  Nothing 
was  more  characteristic  of  Jesus  than  His  gentle,  delicate 
sympathy  with  the  disreputably  sinful.  If  such  a  thing 
did  happen  as  a  fallen  impure  woman  coming  into  a 
house  where  He  sat  at  meat,  and  acting  as  she  is  reported 
to  have  done  amid  the  frowns  of  Pharisaic  guests,  it  may 
be  taken  for  certain  that  He  behaved  towards  her  and 
spoke  of  her  as  Luke  represented.  And  that  primitive 
disciples,  knowing  the  Master's  way  with  sinners  well,  and 
valuing  It  duly,  might  in  absence  of  a  good  illustrative 
instance  invent  one,  or  at  least  adapt  an  actual  occurrence 
to  the  purpose,  is  not  unimaginable.  Only  in  that  case  we 
should  have  to  regard  Luke,  in  view  of  his  preface,  as  the 
reporter  of  a  congenial  tradition,  rather  than  as  the  investor 


462  APOLOGBTIOa. 

of  a  beautiful  tala  Bat  there  are  several  things  which  are 
against  the  idea  that  the  story  is  an  invention  either  at 
first  or  at  second  hand.  In  the  first  place,  the  parable  of 
the  two  debtors  is  an  original  element.  There  is  nothing 
corresponding  to  it,  or  that  might  suggest  it,  in  the  story  of 
the  anointing  in  Bethany.  Then  the  moral  of  that  parable 
is  equally  original  It  accredits  itself  as  a  saying  of  Jesus 
by  its  audacity  and  its  liability  to  be  misunderstood.  The 
sentiment  virtually  taught  is :  "  the  greater  the  sinner  the 
greater  the  saint,"  Who  could  invent  such  a  bold  thought, 
and  put  it  into  the  mouth  of  the  Master  ?  The  average 
disciple  would  be  more  likely  to  shrink  from  it,  with  the 
result  of  its  falling  entirely  out  of  the  evangelic  tradition. 
Then,  finally,  this  sentiment  has  to  be  looked  at  in  connec- 
tion with  others  said  to  have  been  spoken  by  Jesus  in 
defence  of  His  bearing  towards  the  disreputably  sinful,  as 
forming  together  with  them  His  apology  for  an  innovating 
love  that  treated  with  contempt  conventional  distinctions 
between  man  and  man.  That  Jesus  was  assailed  on  this 
account  is  as  certain  as  anything  we  know  about  Him; 
that  He  would  be  ready  with  His  answer  may  be  taken 
for  granted,  and  what  better,  more  felicitous,  more  Jesus- 
like  answers  can  be  imagined  than  those  ascribed  to  Him : 
The  whole  need  not  a  physician ;  he  loves  much  who  ha3 
sinned  and  been  forgiven  much ;  there  is  a  unique  joy  in 
finding  things  lost  ?  With  all  respect  for  the  evangelists, 
I  do  not  think  they  could  invent  anything  so  good  as 
that.  Therein  Jesus  was  decidedly  "over  the  heads  of 
His  reporters." 

The  section  in  Matthew's  Gospel  which  most  wears  the 
aspect  of  an  ideal  history  is  that  containing  the  great 
commission  of  the  risen  Christ  to  His  disciples.*  For 
critics  who  assume  that  the  miraculous  is  impossible,  the 
mere  fact  that  this  commission  is  represented  as  emanating 
from  the  risen  Christ  stamps  it  of  course  as  unhistoricaL 
But  leaving  that  fact  out  of  view,  the  terms  in  which  the 
*  Chap.  xxTiiL  16-20. 


THE   SYNOPTICAL    GOSPELS.  463 

oomroission  ia  expressed  are  such  as  to  arrest  the  attention 
even  of  believing  students  of  the  evangelic  records.  One 
notes  therein  the  injunction  to  administer  to  disciples  the 
rite  of  baptism  nowhere  else  referred  to  in  the  Gospels,  the 
full-blown  universalism/  the  Trinitarian  formula,*  and  the 
promise  of  a  perpetual  spiritual  presence ;  *  all  more  or  less 
suggestive  of  a  later  time,  and  apparently  expressive  of  the 
developed  Christian  consciousness  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
rather  than  of  what  was  likely  to  proceed  from  the  mouth 
of  Jesus  before  He  finally  left  the  world. 

Two  ways  of  meeting  the  difficulty  have  been  suggested. 
One  is  to  regard  the  last  three  verses  of  the  Gospel  as  an 
addition  by  a  later  hand,  corresponding  somewhat  to  the 
Appendix  to  Mark's  Gospel,*  and,  like  it,  rounding  off  and 
worthily  ending  a  narrative  which,  without  the  addendum, 
would  have  a  very  abrupt  close.*  This  solution,  however,  is 
purely  conjectural,  without  fact-basis  in  textual  criticism.' 
The  other  mode  of  dealing  with  the  question  is  to  regard  the 
words  put  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus  as,  in  the  intention  of 
the  evangelist,  not  a  report  of  what  the  risen  Jesus  said  to 
His  disciples  at  a  given  time  and  place,  but  rather  as  a 
summary  of  what  the  Apostolic  Church  understood  to  be 
the  will  of  the  exalted  Lord.  On  this  view  the  commission 
to  the  eleven  is  not  what  Jesus  said  to  them  on  a  hill  in 
Galilee,  but  what  He  spake  to  them  in  spirit  from  His 
heavenly  throne.     For  this  way  of  construing  the  passage 

*  Yer.  19,  "Tesoh,  make  disciples  of,  all  the  nations." 

*  "  Baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the  Father  and  the  Son  and  the  Holy 
Ghost." 

*  Yer.  20,  "And,  lo,  I  am  with  yon  alwayi,  cVen  unto  the  end  of  the 
world." 

*  Mark  xri.  &-20. 

'  Mark's  narratiTO  olosea  with,  "  Neither  said  they  anything  to  any  man  ; 
fw  they  were  afraid  "  (i^»^»»»T#  yif) ;  Matthew's  ex  hypothesi  would  close 
with,  "  When  they  saw  Him,  they  worshipped  Him ;  but  some  doubted  "  (m  M 

*  As  is  well  known,  Mark  zvL  9-SO  is  omitted  in  the  most  important 
MSB.,  such  as  Ki  B.  Nothing  corresponding  to  this  oecon  in  oonnectian 
witii  Matt.  xzYiiL  18-20. 


464  APOLOGETICS. 

there  seems  to  be  some  Justification  in  the  introductory 

words,  wherein  the  speaker  describes  Himself  as  one  having 
all  power  in  heaven  and  on  earth.  It  is  the  style  of  one 
no  longer  walking  on  the  earth,  but  sharing  in  heaven  the 
world-wide  power  and  providence  of  God.* 

On  this  hypothesis  the  great  commission  is  really  an 
idealised  utterance  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  the  only  question 
IB,  Is  it  faithful  to  His  teaching  ?  We  cannot  hesitate  to 
answer  this  question  in  the  affirmative  A  man  of  genius 
characterising  a  preacher  of  a  bygone  generation  said.  His 
meaning  comes  out  in  the  sentence  after  the  last.  Apply- 
ing this  to  the  subject  in  hand,  we  may  say  that  the  com- 
mission to  the  apostles  is  the  sentence  after  the  last  in 
relation  to  Christ's  recorded  utterances  during  the  period  of 
His  public  ministry.  The  records  do  not  indeed  contain 
any  words  relating  to  baptism,  but  it  is  not  likely  that  the 
custom  of  baptizing  converts  would  ever  have  arisen  unless 
there  had  been  some  sanction  for  it  in  the  apostolic  tradition 
of  the  teaching  of  the  Master.'  For  all  the  other  features 
vouchers  can  easily  be  produced-  The  universalism  of  the 
commission  does  not  go  much  beyond  the  word  concerning 
the  preaching  of  the  gospel  in  the  whole  world  spoken  on 
the  occasion  of  the  anointing  in  Bethany.'  The  Trinitarian 
formula  simply  sums  up  in  a  single  phrase  the  theology  of 
Jesus.  He  ever  spake  of  God  as  Father,  He  called  Him- 
self God's  Son,  and  in  the  few  utterances  concerning 
the  Holy  Ghost  recorded  in  the  Synoptical  Gospels  He 
represents  Him  as  God  communicating  Himself  in  His 
grace  to  receptive  souls,  the  summum  honum.  The  Christian 
faith  in  Christ's  recorded  teaching,  as  in  the  baptismal 
formula,  is  faith  in  a  Divine  Father  who  sent  Jesus  His 
Son  into  the  world  on  a  gracious  errand,  and  who  bestows 
tiie  spirit  of  light  and  purity  on  those  who  believe  in  the 

^  Th*  above  ii  the  riew  adopted  hj  Weiss.     Vide  Dcu  Matthdru-Bvan- 
ftlMm,  i^.  682-584. 

*  Vid*  on  thu  point  my  w<Mrk  on  The  Kingdom  ^  CM,  fk  867« 

•  Mark  liv.  9. 


THB  SYNOPTICAL  GOSPKLa.  465 

Father  sjad  the  Son.'  Finally,  the  promise  of  •  perpetual 
spiritual  presence  is  but  a  legitimate  development  out  of 
germs  contained  in  Christ's  authentic  sayings.  A  gpirxttud 
presence,  as  distinct  from  an  eschatological  parousia,  is  not 
unknown  to  the  primitive  tradition.  It  is  found  in  the 
words,  "  Where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together  in  my 
name,  there  am  I  in  the  midst  of  them,"*  whose  authenticity 
there  is  no  good  reason  to  doubt.  Then  the  prolonged 
Christian  era  implied  in  the  promise,  "  Lo,  I  am  with  you 
all  the  days"  is,  there  is  grouud  for  believing,  a  real  feature 
of  Christ's  forecast  of  the  future,  as  contrasted  with  that  of 
Paul  and  of  the  early  Apostolic  Church.*  It  was  a  feature 
in  which  Jesus  was  "  over  the  heads  of  His  reporters,"  and 
was  not  understood  until  events  threw  light  on  the  signi- 
ficance of  His  sayings.  The  primitive  Church  slowly 
learned  that  the  world  was  to  last  longer  than  they  at  first 
expected  just  by  its  lasting.  The  destruction  of  Jerusalem  in 
the  year  70  A.D.  did  much  to  open  their  eyes.  They  had 
thought  that  immediately  after  the  tribulation  of  those 
days  the  end  would  come  and  the  Son  of  man  arrive.  The 
end  did  not  come,  the  world  went  on  as  if  nothing  had 
happened.  Then  it  began  to  dawn  on  them  that  many 
days  and  years  might  pass  before  the  final  consummation 
took  place.  The  closing  words  of  Matthew's  Gospel  reflect 
this  altered  state  of  feeling.  The  fact  is  suggestive  of  a 
date  of  composition  subsequent  to  the  great  Jewish  cata- 
strophe. The  great  apocalyptic  discourse,  as  recorded  in  the 
twenty-fourth  chapter  of  the  Gospel,  on  the  other  hand, 
speaks  for  a  date  antecedent  to  the  affliction  of  Israel,  the 
"  end  "  being  there  connected  more  closely  with  the  affliction 
than  was  likely  to  be  done  by  one  writing  post  evenium. 
The  seeming  discrepancy  is  one  of  the  things  that  might  be 
adduced  in  support  of  the  hypothesis  that  the  great  com- 
mission  is  an  addition  by  a  later  hand. 

^  ride  The  Kingdom  qf  Ood,  p.  258. 

■  Matt,  xriii.  20. 

*  Vide  The  Kingdom  of  God,  chap,  zfi, 

2  o 


itb  APOLOOETICS 

The  result  of  the  whole  foregoing  inquiry  ig  to  confirm 
the  first  impression  as  to  the  historicity  of  the  Synoptical 
Gospels,  which,  in  the  first  chapter  of  this  book,  the  student 
was  encouraged  to  trust,  in  seeking  through  them  to  attain 
to  a  true  knowledge  of  Jesus.  The  evangelists  have  told  a 
story  reliable  in  all  its  main  features,  which  we  may  read 
with  minds  undisturbed  by  the  confident  assertions  of 
critics  bent  on  verifying  adventarous  theories. 


CHAPTEB  IX. 

THE  FOUKTH  GOSPEU 

LrrERATURK. — Sanday,    T?ie    Authorship    and    Historical 

Character  of  the  Fourth  Gospely  1872,  The  Gospels  in  the 
Second  Century,  1876,  Articles  on  the  Present  Position  of  the 
Johannean  Question  in  Expositor,  1891-2  ;  Salmon,  Introduc- 
tion to  the  New  Testament ;  Westcott,  The  Gospel  according  to 
St.  John  (Introduction) ;  Reynolds,  "  Introduction  to  John's 
Gospel"  in  Pulpit  Commentary ;  Eeuss,  La  Bible,  Nowveau 
Testamsnt,  6me  partie,  La  Theologie  Johannique  ;  The  Fourth 
Gospel  (K  Abbott,  A.  P.  Peabody,  J.  B.  Lightfoot),  1892  ; 
Watkins,  Modem  Criticism  and  the  Fourth  Gospel  (Bampton 
Lectures,  1890)  ;  Gloag,  Introduction  to  the  Johannine  Writ- 
ings ;  Wendt,  Die  Lehre  Jesu  (two  parts,  of  which  second 
translated  and  published  under  the  title  The  Teaching  of 
Jesus)  ;  Oscar  Holtzmann,  Das  Johannes-Evangelium  unter- 
nicht  und  erkldrt,  1887;  Weizsacker,  Das  Apostolische 
Zeitalter ;  Paul  Ewald,  Das  Hauptprohlem  der  Evangelien- 
frage,  1890.  Vide  also  Articles  in  the  Contemporary  Review 
for  September  and  October  1891,  by  Schiirer  and  Sanday. 

The  Fourth  Gospel  presents  the  hardest  apologetic  pro- 
blem connected  with  the  origin  of  Christianity.  The  stress 
of  the  problem  does  not  lie  on  the  question  as  to  Johannine 
authorship.  A  question  of  that  kind  can  in  no  case  be 
vital  to  the  Christian  faith.  Questions  as  to  the  authorship 
of  particular  bibli'sal  books  are  questions  of  fact,  not  of 
fiaitli.     They  may  in  some  cases  be  very  important  to  faith, 


IBE    FOURTH    G08PKL.  467 

but  hardly  ever  essentiaL  In  the  present  instance  it  is  in 
a  high  degree  the  interest  of  faith  to  assert  its  independence 
aa  far  as  possible  of  the  question  of  authenticity.  For 
while  the  doctrinal  significance  of  the  book  is  great,  its 
claim  to  have  been  written  by  the  Apostle  John  does  not 
rise  above  a  high  degree  of  probability.  And  the  faculty 
of  estimating  the  grounds  on  which  the  claim  rests  is 
not  at  the  command  of  all  believers  in  any  considerable 
measure.  It  varies  in  different  men,  not  only  with  theo- 
logical bias,  but  with  knowledge,  temperament,  and  the 
power  of  historical  imagination.  Hence  the  most  diverse 
conclusions  are  arrived  at  from  the  same  premises.  Some 
are  confident  that  the  Apostle  John  did  not  write  the  Gospel 
which  bears  his  name,  others  regard  it  as  beyond  all  doubt 
that  he  did,  others  again  know  not  what  to  think,  and 
incline  alternately  now  to  this  side  and  then  to  that ;  some 
think  he  wrote  a  part  of  the  Gospel,  a  Grundsehrift,  while 
others  believe  that  he  rather  inspired  the  man  who  wrote 
the  Gospel  than  wrote  it  himself  in  part  or  in  whole. 
Possibly  the  question  may  never  get  beyond  this  unsatis- 
factory condition ;  possibly  it  may  be  settled  conclusively 
by  the  discovery  of  some  lost  book  such  as  the  Exposition 
of  the  Oracles  of  the  Lord,  by  Papias.  Meantime,  pending 
such  happy  discoveries,  men  will  continue  to  form  conflict- 
ing judgments  according  to  their  intellectual  and  religions 
idiosyncrasies.* 

The  really  vital  question  is.  Have  we  two  incompatible 
Christs  in  these  evangelic  memoirs,  all  professedly  or  appar- 
ently historic :  one  Christ  in  the  three  synoptists,  another  in 
the  Fourth  Gospel  by  whomsoever  written  ?  Have  we  here 
not  merely  different  material  showing  the  same  person  per- 
forming new  actions  and  uttering  new  sayings,  but  material 
conveying  a  different  general  impression  not  reconcilable  with 
that  made  by  the  reports  of  brother  evangelists  ?     That  there 

*  Sean  mjb  th»t  for  a  long  time  to  come  the  qaestioB  of  the  origin  of  th« 
Fourth  Gospel  will  be  decided  for  most  studenta  by  poraonal  diqwdtioa 
Tidt  La  BibU,  6me  parti*,  p.  102. 


468  APOLOGETICS. 

should  be  a  considerable  amount  of  valuable  material  relating 
to  the  public  ministry  of  Jesus  lying  outside  the  limits  of  the 
synoptical  record,  is  nowise  improbable.  It  is  quite  conceiv- 
able that  our  Synoptical  Gospels  represent  a  very  one-sided 
tradition,  that  they  are  not  even  the  main  stream,  but  only 
a  tributary  of  the  broad  river  of  evangelic  story,  and  that 
the  stereotyping  of  this  fragmentary  representation  as  if  it 
were  the  whole,  in  those  parts  of  the  Apostolic  Church  in 
which  the  three  first  Gospels  arose,  was  due  to  the  prestige 
belonging  to  certain  sources  used  in  their  construction ; 
bearing  apostolic  names,  therefore  justly  valued  as  docu- 
ments of  first-class  importance,  yet  actually  far  from  com- 
plete as  records  of  Christ's  words  and  deeds.  Matthew's 
Logia,  and  Peter's  reminiscences  taken  down  by  Mark, 
neither  pretending  to  be  exhaustive,  might  thus  together 
become  the  innocent  cause  of  an  impoverished  partial 
evangelic  tradition  being  taken  for  the  whole,  so  making  it 
necessary  that  one  who  knew  that  there  was  much  more  of 
not  less  value  to  relate  should  write  such  a  book  as  the 
Fourth  Gospel*  But  what  if  it  should  be  found  on  inspec- 
tion that  this  supplementary  Gospel  was  really  not  a 
supplement  but  a  substitute,  a  heterogeneous  presentation 
of  a  great  Personage,  bearing  the  same  name,  but  exhibiting 
a  spirit,  character,  and  claim  foreign  to  the  Jesus  of  Matthew, 
Mark,  and  Luke  ?  In  that  case  it  would  be  difficult  to 
believe  that  one  of  the  men  who  had  been  with  Jesus  wrote 
the  book.  But  that  would  be  the  smallest  part  of  the  per- 
plexity resulting.  In  the  case  supposed  we  should  be 
obliged  to  choose  which  of  the  two  Christs  we  were  to 
believe  in,  that  of  the  synoptists,  or  that  of  the  Fourth  GospeL 
The  Church  catholic  has  not  felt  itself  to  be  placed  in 
any  such  painful  predicament.  It  has  found  in  the  three 
first  Gospels  on  the  one  hand,  and  in  the  Fourth  on  the 
other,  views  of  Christ  distinct,  indeed,  but  not  irreconcilable. 
In  the  former  it  has  recognised  the  picture  of  Jesus  on  His 

^  The  above  is  substantially  the  view  adrocated  by  Dr.  Pftol  EwEld  in  Dtu 
BtuiplijrobUm  der  Evangaliei^/rage. 


THE  FOURTH   GOSPEU  469 

human  side,  as  the  Son  of  man ;  in  the  latter  the  picture 
of  the  same  Jesus  on  the  divine  side,  as  the  Son  of  God. 
And  it  is  the  fact  that  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  the  divine  side 
of  Jesus  is  shown  that  has  led  many  to  regard  the  question 
of  its  authorship  as  vital  to  faith.  They  wanted  to  be  sure 
that  the  doctrine  of  Christ's  divinity  rested  on  apostolic 
authority,  feeling  that  unless  it  was  one  of  the  men  who 
had  been  with  Jesus  that  wrote  the  prologue,  in  which  He 
is  called  the  Logos,  His  right  to  the  title  might  rest  on  an 
insecure  foundation.  One  can  fully  respect  this  feeling, 
and  yet  it  is,  to  say  the  least,  an  exaggeration.  Our  accept- 
ance of  the  high  doctrine  of  the  Logos  must  rest  on  the 
inspiration  of  the  evangelist,  whoever  he  was,  not  on  the 
merely  external  fact  of  his  being  one  of  the  twelve.  The 
doctrine  of  the  Logos  was  no  part  of  the  personal  teaching 
of  Christ  It  does  not  belong  to  the  evangelic  history,  but 
to  the  philosophy  or  the  theological  construction  of  that 
history.  If  it  represent  a  true  insight  into  the  meaning  of 
Christ's  history,  it  is  an  insight  having  its  origin,  not  in 
the  witness  of  the  physical  eye  or  ear,  but  in  a  spiritual 
illumination  indispensable  even  to  a  John,  and  not  unattain- 
able by  any  unknown  disciple  well  instructed  in  the  things 
of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  though  not  privileged  to  be  one 
of  the  companions  of  the  Lord.  In  this  connection  it  is 
important  to  remember  what  we  have  already  had  occasion 
to  note  concerning  the  genesis  of  the  faith  of  the  first 
disciples  in  Jesus  as  divine.  That  faith  was  not  the  result 
of  speculation,  neither  was  it  a  direct  revelation,  either 
from  heaven  or  through  the  lips  of  Jesus  unmediated  by 
religious  experience.  It  was  due  rather  to  the  impression 
made  on  believing,  loving  hearts  by  the  personal  holiness, 
the  death,  and  the  resurrection  of  Jesus.*  Hence  the 
possibility  of  a  fact  which  might  otherwise  seem  surprising, 
vix.  that  the  highest  views  of  Christ's  person  to  be  found  in 
the  New  Testament,  outside  the  Fourth  Gospel,  are  con- 
tained in  the  writings  of  men  who  had  little  or  no  firat- 

>  FuJe  p.  400. 


470  APOLOGETICa. 

hand  acquaintance  with  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  that  is  t6 
say,  in  the  Epistles  of  Paul  and  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 
The  Christology  of  the  proem  to  the  latter  book  approaches 
very  closely  to  that  contained  in  the  introduction  to  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  and  its  objective  value  to  the  Church 
depends  not  on  any  direct  acquaintance  of  the  author  with 
what  Jesus  said  or  did, — for  to  that  he  expressly  indicates 
he  could  lay  no  claim,* — but  on  the  spiritual  insight  he 
possessed  into  the  religious  significance  of  Him  through 
whom  God  had  spoken  His  last  word  unto  men. 

The  external  evidence  as  to  the  Johannine  authorship  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel,  on  which  experts  pronounce  such  diverse 
judgments,  cannot  easily  be  summarised  so  as  to  put 
ordinary  readers  in  a  position  to  form  an  opinion  of  any 
value.*  In  view  of  the  contradictions  of  men  trained  to 
estimate  the  worth  of  evidence,  one  may  well  distrust 
himself,  and  shrink  from  the  task  of  arriving  at  even  a 
juryman's  judgment  on  the  question  at  issue.  One  who 
feels  himself  incompetent  to  play  the  difi&cult  part  of  a 
historical  critic  may  reasonably  take  up  the  position  of 
deferring  to  the  patristic  tradition,  and  to  the  opinion  of 
such  modern  inquirers  as  think  that  the  evidence  for 
Johannine  authorship  amounts  to  little  short  of  demonstra- 
tion, though  unable  quite  to  rid  himself  of  the  uncomfort- 
able haunting  doubt  that  it  is  by  no  means  so  strong  as 
sanguine  reasoners  assert.*  The  assumption  of  such  an 
attitude  is  justified  by  the  fact  that  as  inquiry  proceeds  the 
question  in  debate  is  being  steadily  narrowed.  The  extreme 
views  of  the  Tubingen  school  as  to  the  late  origin  of  the 

*  Heb.  ii  8.  This  text  implies  that  the  writer  belonged  to  the  generation 
which  enjoyed  the  benefit  of  the  preaching  of  the  apostles.  What  the  Lord 
had  first  spoken,  he  and  bis  contemporaries  had  confirmed  unto  them  by 
those  that  heard  Him. 

'  For  statements  of  the  external  evidence  readers  are  referred  to  books 
dealing  expressly  with  the  subject.  Sanday's  Gospels  in  the  Second  Century 
(1876)  and  Watkin's  Bampton  Lectures /or  1890  may  be  specially  mentioned. 

'  Dr.  Sanday,  writing  in  The  Expositor  for  December  1891,  on  the 
external  eTidence,  says:  "It  can  hardly  prove  that  the  Fourth  Oospe! 
was  written  by  John  in  a  strict  sense  of  the  word  '  prove.'  ** 


THE   FOURTH  QOSPBL  471 

Gospel  are  now  virtually  antiquated,  thongh  still  finding 
representatives  in  such  writers  as  Pfleiderer  and  Martineau. 
By  various  lines  of  evidence  the  date  has  been  steadily 
pushed  back  to  a  time  which  brings  apostolic  authorship 
within  the  range  of  possibility.  The  alternatives  now  may 
be  said  to  lie  between  the  Apostle  John  and  a  disciple  of 
the  apostle,  belonging  to  the  Ephesian  school,  acquainted 
with  the  traditions  of  his  teaching  and  under  his  inspiring 
influence.  The  difiTerence  between  these  two  hypotheses  in 
the  view  of  some  is  still  serious,  while  to  others  it  appears 
trivial ;  but  it  is  beyond  all  question  that  the  theory  of 
Johannine  inspiration,  as  distinct  from  authorship,  advocated 
by  such  a  weighty  writer  as  Weizsacker,  can  be  regarded 
with  equanimity  by  even  the  most  conservative,  in  com- 
parison with  a  theory  which  relegates  the  Gospel  to  the 
middle  of  the  second  century,  remote  from  apostolic  in- 
fluence, and  regards  it  as  the  product  of  new  religious 
tendencies  and  the  child  of  an  alien  world.* 

But,  granting  Johannine  authorship,  or,  at  least,  inspira- 
tion, the  problem  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  by  no  means 
iolved,  nor  is  the  mind  of  the  perplexed  inquirer  therewith 
set  at  rest  Kather  the  serious  difiiculty  then  begins. 
For  the  question  comes  to  be.  How  is  it  possible  that  a 
Gospel  so  different  in  character  from  the  first  three  Gospels, 
on  good  grounds  regarded  as  substantially  true  to  historic 
reality,  could  emanate  directly  or  indirectly  from  the  mind 
of  one  of  the  men  who  had  been  with  Jesus  ?  Till  this 
has  been  seen  to  be  psychologically  credible  no  rest  to  the 
doubter,  or  signal  profit  to  the  reader,  is  possibla  It 
matters  not  what  the  amount  of  external  evidence  for 
Johannine  authorship  may  be.  Suppose  it  reached  the 
certainty  of  mathematical  demonstration,  and  not  merely  a 
fair  degree  of  probability,  it  would  do  no  more  than  compel 

^  In  the  article  previously  referred  to  Dr.  Sanday  saya :  "  I  am  less  son 
that  the  conditions  might  not  be  sufficiently  satisfied  if  the  author  were  • 
disciple  of  John.  There  would  then  be  no  greater  difficulty  in  accounting 
for  the  transference  of  his  name  to  it  than  there  is  in  aocoonting  for  the 
like  transference  in  the  ease  of  St.  Matthew." 


47s  APOi/)GBnca. 

sullen  silence  so  long  as  the  mind  remained  unconvinced  o! 

the  inner  harmony  between  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  the 
other  three.  And  when  I  speak  of  external  evidence  in 
this  connection,  I  have  in  view  not  merely  such  testi- 
monies as  can  be  gathered  from  the  writings  of  the  early 
fathers,  such  as  Irenaeus,  Justin  Martyr,  and  Hippolytus, 
but  also  all  particulars  that  can  be  gathered  from  the  book 
itself,  not  entering  into  the  substance  of  its  teaching,  that 
point  to,  or  are  compatible  with,  Johannine  authorship. 
For  example,  the  numerous  incidental  references  to  places 
and  customs,  which  show  that  the  writer  was  a  Jew  inti- 
mately acquainted  with  the  topography  of  Palestine  and 
the  manners  of  its  people,*  a  fact  obviously  fitting  into,  if 
not  proving,  Johannine  authorship.  To  the  same  category 
may  be  referred  what  may  be  called  the  external  aspect 
even  of  some  of  the  most  characteristic  didactic  matter  of 
the  GospeL  Take,  e.g.,  the  introductory  section  concerning 
the  Logos.  There  are  two  questions  that  may  be  asked  here. 
One  is.  Can  the  view  of  Christ  embodied  in  the  Logos- 
section  be  reconciled  with  the  synoptical  presentation  of 
Christ's  person  ?  the  other  is.  Was  it  possible  for  one  of  the 
men  who  had  been  with  Jesus  to  conceive  of  Him  as  the 
Logos,  or  rather  could  that  conception  arise  toithin  ths 
apostolic  generation  t  The  former  question  belongs  to  the 
region  of  internal  evidence,  that,  viz.  which  helps  us  to 
accept  the  Fourth  Gospel  as  on  the  whole  faithful  to  the 
historic  personality  of  Jesus;  the  latter  comes  under  the 
category  of  external  evidence,  having  for  its  aim  to  prove 
J«hannine  or  apostolic  authorship.  Now,  with  reference  to 
ihe  external  aspect  of  the  Logos  idea,  it  may  be  argued  with 
much  force  that  its  appearance  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  is 
perfectly  compatible  with  the  hypothesis  that  the  Apostle 
John  wrote  it.  Assuming  that  the  idea  originated  with 
Philo,  which,  however,  in  the  view  of  some  is  not  a 
necessary  assumption,  there  was  plenty  of  time  for  it  to 

*  For  illostrations  of  this  vide  Bishop  Lightfoot's  contribation  to  The  Fourth 
Chtpel,  Evidence  External  and  IrUemai  ofiU  Johannecu*  AtUhorahip^  1892. 


THK  rOUBTH  <3O0PEI*  473 

gain  general  corrency,  and  to  reach  Ephesus,  before  the 
period  at  which  the  Gospel,  according  to  the  ancient  tradi- 
tion, was  written,  the  last  decade  of  the  first  century.  And 
it  is  nowise  incredible  that  a  John,  Jew  though  he  was, 
might  find  the  word  useful  as  helping  him  to  claim  for  the 
Lord  Jesus  a  place  in  the  Christian  view  of  the  universe 
analogous  to  that  of  the  Logos  in  the  Alexandrian  philo- 
sophy.' Neither  is  it  incredible  that  by  the  time  the 
Gospel  is  reported  to  have  been  written,  the  Church's  view 
of  Christ's  person  had,  even  in  the  course  of  natural  evolu- 
tion, reached  a  point  which  made  the  new  term  needful  and 
convenient.  Think  what  a  high  view  of  Christ's  position 
in  the  universe  is  expressed  even  in  Paul's  Epistles  written 
in  the  fifth  decade  of  the  first  century,  not  to  speak  of  that 
set  forth  in  the  prologue  of  the  Epistle  to  th©  Hebrews, 
whose  date  is  disputed,  but  in  all  probability  ought  to  be 
placed  before  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  in  the  year  70. 

Among  the  real  or  alleged  phenomena  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  there  are  others  besides  the  presence  in  it  of  the 
Logos  idea,  which  on  due  consideration  the  inquirer  may  be 
able  to  regard  as  not  vital  to  the  problem  at  issue.  There 
is,  for  example,  the  free  treatment  of  history  ascribed  to 
the  writer  by  even  the  more  circumspect  of  modern  critics, 
who  find  in  his  narratives  transparent  allegories,  theology 
disguised  under  a  historical  foruL*  It  were  unwise  to 
affirm  too  dogmatically  that  such  a  "  sovereign  handling  of 
the  history "  *  is  incompatible  with  Johannine  authorship. 
As  already  stated,*  it  is  d  'priori  conceivable  that  one  of  the 
men  who  had  been  with  Jesus  might,  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent,  apply  the  ideal  method  to  the  biography  of  the 
Master.  It  is  simply  a  question  of  what  any  particular 
evangelist  intended  to  do.  Now  as  to  this  we  have  no 
such  explicit  statement  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  as  ie  given  in 
the  prologue  of  the  Third ;  our  judgment  as  to  the  author's 

*  So  Wendt,  Die  Lthn  Jesu,  Erster  Taeil,  p.  810. 
'  So,  e.ff.,  Weizsacker  and  Reuss. 

*  Hamack  in  Dogmengeschichte,  L  8  J.  *  P.  Ml 


474  AFOLOGBTICa 

aim  and  plan  most  rest  on  an  inspection  of  the  oontenta 

And  there  are  some  things  that  seem  to  indicate  a  purpose 
to  keep  in  contact  with  the  solid  ground  of  fact,  and  not  to 
move  at  will  in  the  airy  region  of  imagination.  There  is, 
e.g.,  the  sober,  lengthy  narrative  of  the  Passion,  in  the  main 
a  repetition  of  the  synoptical  story,  while  possessing  its  own 
special  features.  There  is  likewise  the  equally  sober,  briefer 
narrative  of  the  feeding  of  the  five  thousand,  again  sub- 
stantially a  reproduction  of  the  synoptical  account.  From 
the  historical  character  of  these  sections  of  the  Gospel,  in 
which  it  is  in  company  with  the  other  three,  it  is  natural 
to  infer  the  historicity  of  other  narratives  in  which  it  stands 
alone,  as,  e.g.,  in  those  relating  to  Nicoderaus,  the  woman  of 
Samaria,  and  the  Greeks  who  would  see  Jesus.*  Another 
circumstance  cannot  but  strike  tlie  candid  inquirer  as 
curious.  If  the  narratives,  especially  the  miraculous  nar- 
ratives, be,  as  is  alleged,  allegories  in  disguise,  how  comes  it 
that  in  the  first  sample  of  the  kind,  the  story  of  the  turn- 
ing water  into  wine,  the  writer  has  not  by  a  single  word 
hinted  at  his  method  of  teaching,  and  so  furnished  his 
readers  with  a  key  to  the  interpretation  ?  That  sober 
historical  style  at  the  end  of  the  book,  in  the  story  of  the 
crucifixion,  and  this  quasi-historical  style  at  the  commence- 
ment, which  coolly  invents  facts  as  the  vehicles  of  ideas 
and  assumes  that  every  one  will  understand  what  it  ia 
doing,  taken  together  present  a  combination  which,  to  say 
the  least,  is  very  odd  and  puzzling.  The  natural  way  of 
escape  from  perplexity  is  to  assume  that  the  writer  intends 
to  relate  fact  both  at  the  beginning  and  at  the  end. 

Yet,  on  the   other  hand,  there   are   phenomena  in  this 
Gospel  which  seem  plainly  enough  to  indicate  that  through- 

^  Banr  objects  to  this  Inferenm,  in  so  far  as  the  history  of  the  Passion  ia 
ooncemed,  on  the  groand  that  even  in  it  the  writer  of  the  Fourth  Qospel  is 
influenced  by  a  peculiar  interest,  the  desire  to  illustrate  the  fundamental 
idea  which  dominates  the  whole  book.  He  refers  in  proof  to  the  manifest 
wish  to  excuse  Pilate  and  throw  all  blame  on  the  Jews,  and  to  the  section 
about  blood  and  water  which,  he  holds,  cannot  be  history.  Vide  Kritiacht 
Untersuchungen  aJber  die  Kaiumxschen  EvangeHen,  p.  208. 


THE  FOURTH   QOSPEU  476 

out  the  narrative  the  predominant  interest  for  the  writet 
lies  in  the  theological  or  spiritual  import  of  the  stories  he 
tells.  This  is  specially  remarkable  in  connection  with  the 
incidents  relating  to  Nicodemus,  the  woman  of  Samaria, 
and  the  Greeks  who  would  see  Jesus.  In  each  of  these 
cases  the  story  is  unfinished,  the  character  is  introduced  to 
start  a  discourse  of  Jesus,  and  then  allowed  to  drop  out  of 
sight.  The  evangelist  seems  to  care  nothing  for  what 
happened  to  the  subordinate  actors  in  the  drama,  and  to  be 
solely  concerned  about  the  words  their  brief  appearance  on 
the  stage  gave  the  principal  actor  occasion  to  speak.  One 
may  begin  to  wonder  whether  personages  who  are  so 
summarily  dismissed  be  indeed  historic  realities,  and  not 
merely  dramatic  creations  designed  to  give  a  realistic  setting 
to  great  thoughts  of  the  Master.  The  incidents,  however, 
possess  intrinsic  probability. 

Another  thing  that  may  be  regarded  as  compatible  with 
Johannine  authorship,  and  not  vital  to  the  apologetic  problem, 
is  free  reporting  of  those  very  thoughts  of  Jesus  about 
which  there  is  reason  to  believe  the  writer  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  was  supremely  concerned.  That  the  words  of  our 
Lord  have,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  been  very  freely  reproduced 
in  this  Gospel  is  an  opinion  held  by  an  increasing  number 
of  reverent  and  conservative  scholars,  who  firmly  believe  in 
the  Johannine  authorship.*  For  those  occupying  this  posi- 
tion the  question  arises.  How  such  free  reproduction  by  one 
who  had  been  with  Jesus,  an  eye  and  ear  witness  of  His 
personal  ministry,  is  psychologically  conceivable  ?  It  is  a 
question  which  they  have  doubtless  for  various  reasons  been 
tempted  to  shirk,  but  which  some  recent  contributors  to 
the  discussion  of  the  Johannine  question  have  very  fairly 

» Westcott  {The  Gospel  according  to  St.  John,  Introduction,  p.  Ivili)  ui- 
mits  that  St.  John  has  recorded  the  Lord's  diacoorses  with  "freedom."  Watkina 
(BanipUm  Lectures,  p.  426)  says,  '*  The  key  to  the  Fourth  Gospel  lies  in 
translation."  Sanday  {The  Authorship  and  Historical  Character  of  tkt 
Fourth  Gospel,  1872)  argues  for  a  modification  of  Christ's  words  through  the 
unconscious  action  of  a  strong  intellect  and  personality.  Still  more  decidedly 
in  his  recent  articles  in  77ie  Expositor. 


476  APOLOGETICgb 

and  fully  faced.'  Various  helpful  lines  of  thought  hava 
been  suggested.  One,  for  example,  lays  stress  on  the  free 
use  of  the  oraiio  directa  as  not  only  sanctioned  by  the 
literary  habit  of  the  age,*  but  almost  inevitable  to  one  who, 
though  writing  in  Greek,  thought  in  Hebrew.  In  virtue 
of  the  peculiarity  of  the  Hebrew  tongue  "  that  it  has  not 
developed  what  we  call  the  indirect  speech,"*  it  came  to 
pass  that  a  writer  using  that  language,  or  having  his  mind 
dominated  by  its  idiom,  would  be  obliged  to  report  the 
words  of  another  as  if  he  were  giving  the  ipsisdma  verba, 
even  when  all  he  intended  was  to  give  their  gist,  efifect, 
drift,  or  legitimate  consequence.  Under  this  method  of 
writing,  what  seems  a  literal  report  might  contain  only 
the  substance  of  what  was  said,  or  it  might  be  impossible 
to  tell  where  the  words  of  the  speaker  ended,  and  where 
the  comments  of  the  reporter  began.  But  obviously  this 
theory  will  not  account  for  all  the  phenomena.  All  the 
evangelists  were  Hebrews,  but  there  are  few  who  do  not 
believe  that  the  synoptical  evangelists  reproduce  the  words 
of  Jesus  with  more  exactness  than  the  writer  of  the  Fourth 
GospeL  Even  in  their  reports,  in  those  of  Luke  for  ex- 
ample, critics  think  they  can  discover  a  certain  measure  of 
freedom  in  reporting,  but  with  considerable  unanimity  they 
would  say  that  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  a  much  larger  measure 
of  freedom  is  observable.  The  question  thus  arises,  Whence 
this  difference  ? 

An  explanation  is  naturally  sought  for  in  the  drcnm- 
stances  and  character  of  the  writer.  Stress  may  be  laid 
on  three  things :  age,  intellectual  and  spiritual  idiosyncrasy, 
and  the  religious  environment  According  to  the  patristic 
tradition,  John  wrote  his  Gospel  at  an  advanced  period  of  life, 
half  a  century  or  so  after  the  time  of  his  personal  companion- 
ship with  Jesus.     No  wonder,  we  are  ready  to  say,  if  at 

*  Very  specially  Dr.  Sanday  in  the  articles  referred  to  in  previons  note. 

■  Vide  Gore,  7%e  Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  Ood  (Bampton  Leotores,  1891X 
**  The  literary  habit  of  the  a^  allowed  great  freedom  i&  the  oae  of  Bratk 
Urteta;'  p.  71. 

*  Bobertson,  The  Early  Rdigiom  of  Israel,  ik.  42S. 


THE   FOURTH   GOSPEL,  47'7 

80  great  a  distance  from  the  events  the  memory  even  ol 
Christ's  never-to-be-forgotten  words  had  grown  dim,  so  as 
to  leave  in  the  mind  of  the  aged  disciple  only  a  general 
though  true  impression,  which  in  writing  his  Gospel  he  was 
obliged  to  express  in  his  own  language,  the  exact  words 
employed  by  the  Master  being  no  longer  at  his  command. 
This  suggestion,  however,  will  not  carry  us  very  far,  nor  doea 
it  seem  as  if  we  could  justly  lay  much  emphasis  on  lapse  of 
recollection,  in  view  of  the  vividness  and  accuracy  with 
which  in  many  cases  the  external  situation  of  gospel  in- 
cidents is  reproduced  down  to  the  minutest  detail  We 
cannot  but  feel  that  one  who  could  remember  dates  and 
places,  and  even  the  very  hour  of  the  day  at  which  parti- 
cular incidents  occurred,  could  equally  well  recall  words, 
unless  there  were  some  other  influence  at  work  causing 
them  to  disappear  from  consciousness.  Such  an  influence 
we  may  discover  in  the  transmuting  activity  of  the  evan- 
gelist's mind  acting  upon  the  original  data,  the  words  of 
the  Lord  Jesus.  These  were  most  liable  to  undergo  trans- 
mutation. Dates,  localities,  festive  seasons,  journeys  to 
Jerusalem  remain  intractable  to  spiritual  alchemy ;  but 
words  provoke  thought,  they  are  seeds  which  develop  into 
trees ;  and  as  the  tree  is  potentially  in  the  seed,  so  a  devoted 
disciple  may  feel  that  the  whole  system  of  thought,  which 
has  grown  up  in  his  mind  out  of  the  germs  of  truth 
deposited  there  by  his  Master  may  be,  nay  ought  to  be, 
accredited  to  that  Master.  He  may  therefore  deem  it 
quite  unnecessary  anxiously  to  distinguish  between  what 
the  Master  actually  said  and  what  grew  out  of  it.  He 
may  even  find  it  diflBcult  or  impossible  to  make  the 
distinction,  the  mental  activity  having  been  so  long  exer- 
cised, not  in  recollecting  the  ipsissima  verba  spoken  by  the 
teacher,  but  in  brooding  meditation  on  their  import.  And 
it  is  obvious  that  the  stronger  the  mind  of  the  pupil  the 
more  likely  this  was  to  happen.  The  commonplace  disciple 
might  be  able  many  years  alter  to  recall  almost  exactly 
what  Jesus  had  spoken,  just  because  in  his  case  the  seed 


478  APOLOGETICS. 

of  truth  liad  lain  in  his  mind  comparatively  nnfructified 
But  the  disciple  of  original  mind,  mystic  temper,  and  strong 
spiritual  individuality  might  by  comparison  fail  in  recollec- 
tion, just  because  he  had  been  so  prolific  in  reflection.  In 
the  one  case  the  com  of  wheat  abode  alone  in  its  nnim- 
paired  historic  identity,  because  it  had  not  fallen  into  a 
productive  soil ;  in  the  other  it  lost  its  separate  existence 
and  lived  in  the  harvest  of  thought  it  had  produced  in  a 
receptive  spirit. 

Environment  also  must  count  for  something  as  a  stimulus 
to  the  process  of  transmutation.  The  traditional  seat  of 
Uie  evangelist  when  he  wrote  his  Gospel  was  Ephesus.  It 
was  a  great  intellectual  centre  in  which  diverse  religions 
and  philosophic  tendencies  met,  flowing  in  from  all  quarters, 
east,  west,  north,  and  south,  Asia,  Africa,  Europe.  Many 
minds  were  active  there,many  catch- words,  such  as  the  Logos, 
were  current;  there  was  a  Christian  Church  in  the  city 
full  of  its  own  peculiar  life,  yet  not  uninfluenced  by  its 
non-Christian  surroundings,  and  obliged  to  reckon  with 
the  multifarious  influences  at  work ;  and  the  Apostle  John, 
according  to  the  tradition,  was  at  its  head,  its  ruler  and 
spiritual  guide.  His  position  was  one  of  great  responsibility, 
and  his  ability,  as  one  of  the  twelve  to  speak  with  authority 
about  Jesus,  would  be  the  chief  source  of  his  power  to  meet 
the  requirements  of  the  situation.  But  the  situation  would 
also  react  upon  him  in  his  capacity  as  an  evangelic  witness. 
It  might  do  so  in  two  ways :  First  as  a  stimulus  to  that 
process  of  reflection  on  the  words  of  Jesus  already  described, 
through  which  he  gradually  gained  insight  into  the  signifi- 
cance of  Christ's  personal  ministry;  next  as  creating  a 
demand  for  a  statement  of  the  essential  truths  of  the 
Christian  faith  in  terms  suited  to  present  needs  and  modes 
of  thinking.  Under  the  former  aspect  its  efi^ct,  in  con- 
junction with  other  causes,  might  be  a  process  of  mainly 
unconscious  "  translation  "  of  Christ's  teaching  into  a  new 
dialect ;  under  the  latter  aspect  it  would  act  as  a  summons 
to  a  conscious  deliberate  adaptation  of  the  Christian  faith 


THE   FOURTH   GOSPEL.  479 

to  the  religions  demands  of  the  hour.  How  far  the  modifi- 
cations in  the  reports  of  our  Lord's  words  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel  are  spontaneous  and  unconscious,  and  how  far 
conscious  and  intentional,  it  may  be  impossible  to  deter- 
mine. But  we  may  certainly  see  in  the  prologue  an  instance 
of  the  evangelist  deliberately  setting  himself  to  define  the 
attitude  and  claims  of  Christianity  in  reference  to  current 
systems  of  religious  philosophy  aspiring  to  domination  over 
the  minds  of  men.  "  They  talk  grandly  of  the  Logos,"  says 
the  evangelist  in  effect,  "  let  all  earnest  souls  in  quest  of 
truth  find  in  Jesus  the  Logos  they  seek." 

If  we  can  conceive  it  possible  for  one  of  the  men  who 
had  been  with  Jesus  to  report  his  Master's  words  with  such 
freedom  as  is  implied  in  the  substitution  of  the  developed  fruit 
for  the  original  historic  seed-corn,  we  shall  find  no  difficulty 
in  regarding  as  a  possible  feature  of  his  Gospel  a  certain 
disregard  of  time  or  of  the  law  of  progress  in  his  narrative 
of  the  incidents  connected  with  the  personal  ministry, 
exemplified  by  the  Baptist  calling  Jesus  at  the  very  be- 
ginning "  the  Lamb  of  God  who  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world,"  and  by  the  first  disciples  recognising  in  Jesus  at  the 
outset  the  Christ,  of  whom  Moses  in  the  law,  and  the  pro- 
phets did  write,  the  Son  of  God,  the  King  of  Israel  The 
alleged  "  foreshortening,"  or  "  anticipation,"  has  been  ascribed 
partly  to  defect  of  memory,  partly  to  the  very  activity  and 
strength  of  the  evangelist's  mind.*  Possibly  it  were  better 
to  trace  it  to  the  action  of  a  mystic  temperament  prone  to 
disregard  distinctions  of  time,  and  to  be  indfferent  to  the 
progress  of  historic  development  A  mind  of  this  type 
lives  in  the  eternal,  and  sees  all  things  sub  specie  ceternitatis. 
Eternal  life,  not  a  thing  of  the  future,  but  a  present  good, 
is  the  summum  honum  brought  to  the  world  by  Jesus,  as 
presented  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  and  every  topic  treated  of 

'Sanday,  article  in  The  Expositor,  Tannary  1892,  pp.  28,  24.  The  state- 
ment given  in  the  foregoing  part  of  this  paragraph  is  little  more  than  a  free 
nproduction  of  Dr.  Sanday's  views  as  contained  in  various  passages  in  his 
recent  articles.     Vide  especially  T%e  Expositor  for  May  1892,  p.  390. 


480  APOLOOBnCS. 

is  appropriately  contemplated  from  the  eternal  point  of 
view.  Tlie  whole  earthly  life  of  Jesus  is  an  episode  in  the 
eternal  life  of  the  Logos.  Why  carefully  distinguish  be- 
tween now  and  then,  to-day  and  to-morrow,  in  the  details 
of  a  life  which  as  a  whole  is  dominated  by  the  category  of 
the  eternal  ? 

After  this  lengthy  statement  it  may  be  well  to  indicate 
distinctly  the  relation  in  which  an  apologist  stands  to  the 
critical  questions  referred  to.  He  is  not  called  on  to 
pronounce  dogmatically  on  these  questions,  and  to  say 
whether  and  to  what  extent  free  reporting  of  evangelic 
incidents  and  speeches,  and  dislocation  of  historic  order,  are 
actual  characteristics  of  the  Fourth  GospeL  It  is  enough 
for  him  that  a  large  and  increasing  number  of  experts  say 
that  they  are,  to  an  extent  greatly  exceeding  the  measure 
in  which  they  are  traceable  in  the  Synoptical  Gospels. 
The  question  which  concerns  him  is  how  far  the  alleged 
phenomena  affect  the  religious  value  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
as  a  source  for  the  knowledge  of  Christ  The  view  here 
contended  for  is,  that  they  are  not  so  vital  as  at  first  sight 
they  may  seem.  The  efforts  of  recent  scholars  go  far  to 
prove  that  they  are  compatible  with  apostolic,  that  is  to 
say,  with  Johannean  authorship.  But  if  an  apostle  wrote 
the  Gospel,  then  we  can  feel  tolerably  sure  that  with  what- 
ever freedom  the  acts  and  words  of  Jesus  have  been 
reproduced,  the  total  effect  of  the  picture  is  truth  ^  the 
mirror  held  up  to  Him  faithfully  reflects  His  lineaments  and 
spirit  We  can  be  sure,  for  example,  that  whatever  were 
the  actual  words  spoken  by  Jesus  at  the  well  of  Sychar, 
the  discourse  on  the  true  worship  put  into  His  mouth,  is  in 
the  spirit  of  universalism  which  it  breathes,  a  thoroughly 
reliable  representation  of  His  real  religious  attitude.  If  it 
were  not  so,  it  would  be  seriously  misleading,  and  further,  it 
could  not  be  apostolic  in  its  source.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  be  so,  then  we  can  not  only  regard  the  discourse  as  in 
its  general  drift  true  to  the  spirit  of  Jesus,  but  for  all 
practical  purposes  of  Christian  instruction  use  it  as  throng- 


THE   FOURTH    QOSPEI*  481 

out  an  exact  report  of  Christ's  words,  disregarding  jcniplea 
arising  out  of  critical  considerations.^ 

But  now  at  last  we  come  to  the  heart  of  the  question. 
Can  we  say  that  this  Gospel  as  a  whole,  in  its  general  drift 
and  tendency,  is  indeed  true  to  the  spirit  of  Jesus,  as  we 
have  become  acquainted  with  it  by  aid  of  the  first  three 
Gospels  ? 

A  striking  phrase  in  the  prologue  awakens  expectation 
"  Full  of  grace  and  truth  " :  *  the  words  create  the  hope 
that  we  are  about  to  have  the  choice  theme  they  suggest 
amply  illustrated,  and  to  be  shown  the  glory  of  Jesus  as 
the  Friend  of  the  sinful,  and  the  Teacher  of  a  rich  varied 
system  of  moral  and  religious  truth.  Especially  do  we 
look  for  an  exhibition  of  that  side  of  Christ's  character 
which  earned  for  Him  the  honourable  nickname  of  the 
Friend  of  publicans  and  sinners,  all  the  more  that  the 
evangelist  makes  it  evident  by  the  repetition  of  the  word 
"  grace  "  how  fully  alive  he  is  to  the  fact  that  beneficent 
benignant  love  occupied  a  prominent  place  in  the  public 
ministry  of  Jesus.  "  Of  His  fulness,"  he  adds,  "  have  all 
we  received,  and  grace  for  grace."  Then,  as  if  to  apologise 
for  the  stress  laid  on  that  boon,  as  if  it  were  the  gift  for 
which  above  all  others  Christians  were  indebted  to  their 
Lord,  he  goes  on  to  point  out  that  that  which  made  the 
coming  of  Jesus  Christ  into  the  world  an  epoch-making 
event,  worthy  to  form  the  commencement  of  a  new  era,  was 
precisely  that  thereby  grace  and  truth,  as  distinct  from  the 
law  given  by  Moses,  received  a  worthy  satisfying  realisa- 
tion.    But  on  reading  further  we  gradually  discover  that 

*  May  w»  regard  John  iri  12-14  aa  eoTeriog  the  principle  that  whateT« 
the  iUominating  Spirit  taught  a  disciple  to  see  in  the  words  of  Jesus  waa  a 
word  of  Jesoa  ?  In  farour  of  this  is  that  in  this  Gospel  the  Holy  Spirit  ia 
the  alter  tgo  of  Jesus,  John  ziv.  16,  18.  Aa  with  Paul,  the  Spirit  ia  the 
Lord.  If  this  interpretation  be  correct,  then  we  have  in  the  paasage  post- 
tire  proof  that  the  evangelist  would  not  think  it  necessary  to  distingmah 
between  the  exact  words  of  Jesus  and  what  they  had  grown  into  in  his  mind, 
but  might  give  all  aa  a  diaooone  of  the  Idaatar. 

*  Joha  i.  14. 

2X 


482  AP0L0QEIIC8. 

to  illastrate  the  theme,  Jesus  full  of  grace,  cannot  hay« 
been  a  leading  aim  of  the  evangelist  One  would  lathex 
say  that  he  regards  it  as  a  commonplace  not  needing  illus- 
tration for  readers  who  are  supposed  to  be  persons  who  have 
already  received  an  abundant  supply  of  Christ's  grace,  as  an 
object  both  of  knowledge  and  of  experience.  For,  in  point 
of  fact,  there  is  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  very  little  of  that  sort 
of  material  which  constitutes  the  specialty  and  glory  of 
the  synoptical  histories,  and  justifies  the  claim  of  the 
gospel  they  contain  to  be  called  the  gospel  of  pardon  and 
hope  for  the  sinfuL  There  are  no  stories  like  those  of 
Matthew's  feast,  the  woman  in  the  house  of  Simon  the 
Pharisee,  and  Zacchaeus  the  publican,  illustrating  Christ's 
tender  sympathetic  interest  in  the  moral  outcasts  of  Jewish 
society ;  no  apologies  for  loving  reprobates  like  tJie  whole 
need  not  a  physician^  much  forgiven  much  love,  the  joy 
of  joys  is  to  find  things  lost.  The  nearest  approach  to  the&e 
synoptical  features  may  be  found  in  the  narratives  of  the 
woman  of  Samaria,  and  of  the  woman  taken  in  adultery. 
But  in  neither  case  is  the  lesson  directly  taught  the 
gi-acious  attitude  of  Jesus  towards  the  erring  From  both 
one  can  learn  by  inference  that  the  Jesus  of  tne  rou;»*i 
Gospel  is  the  same  Jesus  of  whom  Pharisees  complained : 
This  man  receiveth  sinners,  and  eateth  with  them.  But 
that  is  not  the  moral  which  the  author  of  that  Gospel,  in 
these  stories,  makes  it  his  business  to  inculcate.  His  lead- 
ing motive  in  introducing  the  narrative  of  the  Samaritan 
woman  is  to  report  the  discourse  of  Jesus  on  the  true 
worship,  and  in  that  of  the  woman  taken  in  adultery  it 
seems  to  be  to  show  the  desire  of  the  Pharisees  to  bring 
Jesus  into  bad  relations  with  the  legal  authorities.  The 
mildness  of  Jesus  towards  the  offender  is  a  subordinate 
point*  The  difference  between  the  synoptical  presentation 
and  that  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  very  apparent  when  we 
compare    two   narratives   in    other   respects    similar:    the 

*  The  genoinenesa  of  th«  perteope  uduUtrm  is  cstNiuely  doubtful,  bat  af 
that  we  need  not  here  take  aooouafei 


THE   FOUBTH   OOSPBL.  483 

healing  of  the  palsied  man  on  the  one  hand,^  and  the  healing 

of  the  man  who  had  an  infirmity  thirty  and  eight  years  on 
the  other."  In  the  one  we  hear  Jesus  utter  the  character- 
istic word  of  encouragement  and  sympathy,  "  Courage, 
child,  thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee."  In  the  other  there  is  at 
first  no  word  of  sin  or  forgiveness,  but  only  of  a  physical 
miracle  which,  being  wrought  on  the  Sabbath  day,  provoked 
the  hostile  comments  of  the  Jews ;  and  when  afterwards 
3in  is  spoken  of  at  a  subsequent  meeting  between  Jesus 
and  the  healed  one,  it  is  in  a  severe  minatory  manner.* 

The  fair  conclusion  from  all  these  facts  seems  to  be,  that 
while  the  grace  of  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  sense  of  redeeming 
sympathy  with  the  sinful,  and  its  cardinal  importance  in 
the  Christian  faith,  is  fully  recognised  in  this  Gospel,  it  did 
not  enter  into  the  plan  of  the  writer  to  enlarge  upon  it. 
One  reason,  if  not  the  sole  reason,  for  this  probably  was 
that  the  writer  had  in  view,  as  his  first  readers,  disciples 
supposed  to  be  familiar  with  the  gracious  aspect  of  Christ's 
character  and  ministry.* 

What  then,  we  ask,  was  the  leading  aim  of  the  writer  ? 
If  it  was  not,  as  we  at  first  thought,  to  exhibit  the  glory  of 
Jesus  in  the  fulness  of  His  grace,  what  else  could  it  be  ? 
Apparently  it  was  to  show  the  glory  of  the  Incarnate 
Logos  as  divine ;  by  a  detailed  narrative  to  let  it  be  seen 

*  Matt  lz.S-8. 

'  John  T.  1-lS.  Osow  Holtzmann  flOAkes  the  general  criticism  that  the 
chief  defect  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  lies  in  the  absence  of  promises  and  demande 
in  reference  to  the  moral  condition  of  men,  i.e.  worda  bearing  on  pardon  and 
repentance, — Da$  Johannes-Evwngdiwn,  p.  02. 

*  John  V.  14. 

*  The  emphasis  with  which  the  evangelist  speaka  of  the  love  of  Jeana  to 
His  disciples,  and  the  delight  he  takes  in  exhibiting  the  intimate  fellowship 
of  the  Master  with  his  companions  during  the  closing  hours  of  His  life 
(chaps.  xiii.-xvii.),  may  suggest  the  question,  Was  this  "grace,"  whereof 
mention  is  made  in  the  prologue,  Christ's  love  for  "His  own,"  the  twelve, 
and  all  others  who  like  them  and  through  them  believed  in  Him  ?  Such 
seems  to  be  the  view  of  Mr.  Barrow  {Regni  Evavgelium,  p.  49).  "  Where 
are  the  '  gracious  words '  of  Him  who  drew  and  held  the  thronging  crowds  t 
They  are  reserved  tot  ih»  chosen  few  whom  the  Father  has  given  into  His 
hand." 


484  AFOLOGETICa, 

how  through  the  dense  veil  of  the  flesh  the  rays  of  a 
divinity  that  could  not  be  hid  still  brightly  shone.  Tka 
Christ  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  seems,  in  spite  of  all  humiliat- 
ing circumstances,  to  be  a  glorified  Christ,  a  Son  of  man 
who  all  the  while  is  in  heaven.  This  view  seems  to  be 
borne  out  by  the  miraculous  narratives  of  this  Gospel,  as 
compared  with  those  in  the  Synoptical  Gospels.  The  dif- 
ference has  been  broadly  expressed  by  saying  that  while  the 
synoptical  miracles  are  in  the  main  miracles  of  humanity, 
the  Johannine  miracles  are  miracles  of  state}  They  appear 
to  be  wrought  not  for  the  benefit  of  others,  but  to  glorify 
the  worker.  They  are  often,  objectively  viewed,  acts  of 
humanity;  but  from  the  narrator's  point  of  view  that  seems 
to  be  an  accident  It  was  an  act  of  compassion  to  heal  the 
impotent  man  at  the  pool  of  Bethesda,  but  he  was  one  of 
many  selected  apparently  to  exhibit  Jesus  as  a  fellow- 
worker  with  the  Father.  In  the  Synoptical  Gospels,  on  the 
other  hand,  how  often  do  we  read :  "  And  He  healed  them 
all"  the  aim  of  the  evangelists  manifestly  being  to  exhibit 
Jesus  as  intent  on  doing  as  much  good  to  men  as  possible. 
This  charaoteristic  of  the  "Johaunean"  miracles  is  a 
feature  which  must  be  looked  at  in  any  thorough  attempt 
to  estimate  the  religious  value  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  It 
has  lately  been  brought  into  great  prominence  by  being 
made  one  of  the  main  grounds  of  a  partition  theory  as  to 
the  composition  of  the  Gospel,  according  to  which  it  con- 
sists of  a  Johannine  source,  containing  chiefly  discourses  of 
Jesus,  with  later  additions,  including  many  of  the  mira- 
culous narratives,  inserted  by  an  editor  who  imperfectly 
understood  the  mind  of  Christ  and  the  meaning  of  His 
actions.  The  underlying  assumption  is  that  an  apostle 
could  not  so  far  have  mistaken  the  aim  of  Christ's 
miraculous  works  as  to  regard  them  as  mere  thaumaturgic 
displays  of  power,  Ostentationsiounder*  It  is  incumbent 
on   those   who   believe   at   once   in  the  unity  and  in  the 

^  Brace,  The  ifiraeulous  Element  in  the  Oospela,  p.  Iftl 
*  Vide  Wendt,  Die  Lehre  Jetu,  Enter  Theik,  p.  288. 


THE   FOURTH   GOSPEL.  486 

apostolic  authorship  of  the  Gospel  to  do  their  hest  to 
break  the  force  of  this  argument  by  presenting  the  miracles 
it  reports  in  a  more  favourable  light.  For  this  purpose  it 
might  be  pointed  out  that  the  glory  which  is  represented 
as  the  aim  of  the  miracles  is  not  of  the  vulgar  sort,  but,  in 
some  instances  at  least,  is  rather  what  the  world  would 
call  humiliation  or  shame.  Thus  the  raising  of  Lazarus 
glorified  the  Son  of  God  not  merely  by  showing  His  divine 
power,  but  by  causing  His  crucifixion.  Then  it  might 
further  be  remarked  that  we  are  not  to  assume  that  the 
evangelist  gives  a  full  account  of  Christ's  motives  as  a 
miracle  worker,  any  more  than  of  His  miraculous  works 
whereof  He  reports  only  a  small  selection.  He  might  be 
aware  of  the  humanity  that  manifested  itself  in  Christ's 
miracles,  and  fully  alive  to  its  value,  just  as  he  knew  and 
appreciated  the  grace  of  Christ's  ministry,  though  he  passes 
it  over  as  a  commonplace.  Indeed,  we  may  regard  the 
overlooking  of  the  humanitarian  aspect  of  the  miracles  as  a 
mere  detail  in  the  more  comprehensive  feature  of  the 
Gospel  first  remarked  on,  its  omission  of  illustrative  in- 
stances under  the  category  of  grace,  whose  importance 
nevertheless  it  emphatically  recognises  in  general  terms. 

Thus  far,  then,  our  answer  to  the  grave  question  under 
discussion  must  be  as  follows :  The  Fourth  Gospel  does  not 
ignore,  deny,  misconceive,  or  misrepresent  the  gracious 
spirit  of  Jesus  as  revealed  to  us  in  its  loveliness  in  the 
synoptical  presentation  of  His  life.  The  writer  knows 
that  spirit,  and  assumes  that  his  readers  know  it,  and  have 
received  it  and  its  blessing  into  their  hearts.  He  says 
nothing  in  his  Gospel  which  contradicts  that  view  of 
Christ's  character,  or  disparages  it;  on  the  contrary,  he 
reports  words  and  acts  of  Jesus  in  which  it  is  implied  and 
presupposed.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  he  makes  no  special 
contribution  to  its  illustration.  He  has  another  end  in 
view,  distinct,  though  not  incompatible.  He  places  the 
emphasis  on  another  aspect  of  the  incarnate  life  of  the 
Son  of  God.     His  point  is  not  that  the  Son  of  God  was 


486  APOLOGETICS. 

gracious,  but  that  the  grace  manifested  was  that  of  a  Divisi 
Person,  and  in  his  zeal  to  make  this  apparent  he  allows  the 
grace  to  retire  into  the  background,  and  brings  the  power 
with  which  it  was  associated  to  the  front.  In  his  own 
theological  way  he  does  indeed  set  forth  the  love  of  Jesus 
to  the  sinful,  as  when  through  the  lips  of  the  Baptist  he 
calls  Him  the  Lamb  of  God,  and  through  Christ's  own  lips 
he  represents  Him  as  giving  His  flesh  for  the  life  of  the 
world,  as  the  good  Shepherd  who  giveth  His  life  for  the 
sheep,  as  lifted  up  that  He  might  draw  all  men  to  HinL 
Yet  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  this  is  the  burden  of  the 
story  as  a  whole,  in  the  sense  in  which  this  can  be  afl&rmed 
of  the  other  Gospels.  How  the  fact  ought  to  affect  our 
practical  estimate  and  use  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  in  relation 
to  the  other  three,  is  a  question  to  be  hereafter  considered. 
Meantime  let  us  finish  our  comparison  of  the  two  presenta- 
tions of  Christ. 

Christ's  antipathy  to  Pharisaism,  which,  not  less  than  His 
sympathy  with  "  publicans  and  sinners,"  was  a  conspicuous 
feature  of  His  religious  character,  according  to  the  synopti- 
cal presentation,  is  not  accentuated  in  the  Fourth  Gospel 
The  two  classes  of  society  are  indeed  hardly  distinguished, 
being  merged  in  the  one  comprehensive  category  of 
"Jews,"  who  in  turn  appear  as  a  section  of  the  great 
godless  world.  Minor  shades  of  moral  difference  fade 
away  before  the  one  radical  division  of  mankind  into 
children  of  light  and  children  of  darkness.  Yet  the 
antagonistic  attitude  of  Jesus  towards  the  religion  in  vogue 
does  find  occasional  recognition,  as  in  the  passage,  instruc- 
tive throughout,  where  He  describes  Himself  as  one  who 
receives  not  honour  from  men,  in  contrast  to  those  who 
receive  honour  one  of  another.*  The  whole  matter  is  here 
in  a  nutshell  The  Pharisee  desires  and  obtains  praise  from 
his  fellows.  His  is  a  religion  of  vanity,  ostentation,  and 
Belf-conscious  goodness ;  it  is  all  on  the  outside,  and  steadily 
tends  to  insincerity  and  hypocrisy.     Jesus  neither  desires 

I  John  T.  41,  44. 


THE  FOUBTH  OOSPBL.  487 

nor  obtains  the  praise  of  men.  His  goal  is  duty,  not 
applause.  Self  is  suppressed.  Ostentation  is  abhorrent 
to  His  lowly  mind.  His  goodness  is  in  the  heart,  not 
a  thing  for  outward  show ;  and  He  loves  truth  in  the 
inward  parts  with  a  sacred  passion.  That  the  religion  of 
Jesus  was  free  from  the  scrupulosity  of  Pharisaism,  not  less 
than  from  its  ostentation,  is  not  shown  with  the  amplitude 
of  detail  we  find  in  the  synoptists ;  but  the  fact  is  suffi- 
ciently attested  by  Sabbatic  miracles,^  which  give  rise  to 
altercations  somewhat  after  the  manner  with  which  the 
first  three  Gospels  make  us  familiar. 

It  is  impossible  here  to  go  at  length  into  the  question 
how  far  the  general  view  of  the  teaching  of  Christ  pre- 
sented in  the  Fourth  Gospel  corresponds  to  that  given  in 
the  other  three.  It  might  fairly  be  contended  that  under 
an  undoubted  superficial  diversity  in  form  there  is  sub- 
stantial identity  in  import'  Yet,  on  the  other  hand, 
candour  might  demand  the  admission  that  such  an  identity 
cannot  easily  be  made  out  without  some  toning  down  of 
distinctiveness  on  either  side.  One  would  certainly  expect 
to  find  that  the  obliteration  of  the  distinction  between 
Pharisee  and  "  sinner  "  was  not  without  its  effect  on  the 
Johannean  presentation  of  Christ's  doctrine  concerning  God 
and  man.  There  is  really  a  perceptible  difference  here. 
God  is  "  the  Father  "  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  as  in  the  other 
three.  But  He  is  the  Father  chiefly  in  reference  to  the 
Divine  Son,  and  under  Him  to  those  to  whom  the  right  is 
given  to  become  children  of  God.*  God  has  no  prodigal 
sons.^  All  men  are  either  sons  of  God  or  sons  of  the  devil. 
There  is  no  doctrine  of  the  worth  of  man  even  at  the 
lowest  in  virtue  of  his  spiritual  endowments  or  possibili- 

»  John  T.  5-9,  Ix.  9-14. 

'  Saoh  is  the  view  which  Wendt  endeaTonn  to  eatabliah  in  detail  in  Ui 
work  on  Th$  Teaching  <(fJe8tt8, 

•  John  L  12. 

« In  John  It.  21,  23  Jeans  calls  Ood  "Father"  in  the  hearing  of  the 
Samaritan  woman,  a  representative  of  the  prodigal  olaas,  bat  it  is  with 
reference  to  the  "  tnw  worshipperB." 


488  APOLOOETIGB. 

ties.  There  are  no  pregnant  sayings  like  that  one :  *  Hott 
much  is  a  man  better  than  a  sheep."  All  of  this  sort 
may  be  understood  and  taken  for  granted,  though  it  is  not 
said.^ 

In  view  of  the  foregoing  comparative  estimate  the 
question  arises.  What  is  the  proper  place  and  use  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  as  a  gource  of  knowledge  concerning  the 
Lord  Jesus  ? 

Its  proper  place  is  second,  not  first  It  is  the  second 
lesson  -  book  of  evangelic  knowledge,  not  the  primer. 
Whether  in  the  intention  of  the  author  it  was  a  supple- 
ment to  the  synoptical  account  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  sup- 
posed to  be  familiar  to  his  readers,  it  may  be  impossible  to 
determine,  but  certainly  its  power  to  edify  largely  depends 
on  its  being  used  as  a  supplement.  Some  are  of  opinion 
that  the  Fourth  Gospel  was  first  written,  and  that  the  other 
three  presuppose  its  existence.*  It  is  a  very  improbable 
hypothesis,  contrary  at  once  to  ancient  tradition,  to  the  all 
but  unanimous  opinion  of  modem  critics,  and  to  the  internal 
evidence  of  theological  development  witnessing  to  a  com- 
paratively late  origin.  But  even  if  the  fact  were  so,  the 
gospel,  dB  hypothesi  first  in  the  order  of  time,  would  have  to 
be  treated  as  second  in  the  order  of  use.  Apart  from  all 
doubtful  questions  of  date,  the  Synoptical  Gospels  must  be 
regarded  as  the  "  Propylaeum  of  the  Evangelic  Sanctuary."  ■ 

The  fact  being  so,  how  inconsiderate  and  mischievous 
must  be  all  comparisons  between  the  Fourth  Gospel  and 
the  other  three,  which  amount  to  disparagement,  and 
encourage  neglect,  of  the  latter ;  as  if  the  Christian  disciple 
might  leave  them  on  one  side,  and,  ignorant  of  all  their 
rich  and  varied  teaching,  religious  and  ethical,  rush  at  once 
to  the  second  lesson-book.     There  has  been  too  much  of 

*  Wendt't  treatment  of  the  theme  "  God  as  the  Father  "  it  not  satisfactory. 
Identity  of  view  between  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  the  other  three  is  brought 
out  by  an  understatement  of  the  synoptical  doctrine  of  Fatherhood  and 
Bonship.      Vide  The  Teaching  ofJestu, 

*  Vide  Halcombe,  The  Historic  Relation  of  The  Oospeh, 

*  So  Reuss,  La  Bible,  volume  on  Tlie  Johannine  Theology,  p.  107.. 


THE   FOURTH   GOSPEI^  489 

fchifl  ill-judged  way  of  speaking.  It  began  with  Clement  id 
Alexandria/  it  was  continued  by  Luther,  it  received  too 
much  countenance  from  Schleiermacher,  and  it  is  still  echoed 
in  a  sequacious  spirit  by  some  writers  on  the  Gospels.  In 
the  case  of  Schleiermacher  disparagement  of  the  synoptical 
presentation  of  Christ  almost  goes  the  length  of  contempt, 
and  as  showing  what  this  tendency  lands  in,  it  may  be  well 
to  reproduce  his  words.     He  writes: 

"  Nothing  betrays  less  sense  for  the  essence  of  Christianity 

and  for  the  Person  of  Christ,  as  also  historic  sense  and  under- 
standing of  that  through  which  great  events  come  to  pass, 
and  how  those  must  be  constituted  in  whom  these  have  their 
real  ground,  than  the  view  which  first  quietly  appeared 
maintaining  that  John  had  mixed  much  of  his  own  with  the 
sayings  of  Christ,  but  now,  having  grown  strong  in  stillness 
and  furnished  itself  with  critical  armour,  ventures  on  the 
bolder  position  that  John  did  not  write  the  Gospel  at  all, 
but  a  later  author  invented  this  mystic  Christ.  But  how  a 
Jewish  Eabbi  with  benevolent  feelings,  somewhat  Socratic 
morals,  some  miracles,  or  what  at  least  others  took  for  such, 
and  a  talent  for  uttering  apt  maxims  and  parables  (for 
nothing  more  remains,  nay,  some  follies  we  have  to  pardon 
in  him  according  to  the  other  evangelists)  :  how,  I  say,  one 
like  that  could  have  brought  forth  such  an  effect  as  a  new 
religion  and  church,  a  man  who,  if  that  was  all  that  could  be 
said  of  him,  could  not  be  compared  to  Moses  and  Mahomet, 
is  not  made  clear  to  us."  * 

Few  now  will  go  as  far  as  that  Still,  in  the  writings 
of  orthodox  defenders  of  the  authenticity  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  comparisons  are  made  to  the  effect  that  in  the 
synoptics  we  read  chiefly  of  the  external  life  of  Jesus — 
His  intercourse  with  men  and  His  discourses  to  the  multi- 
tude, whereas  in  John  we  see  into  Christ's  inner  nature 

*  Eusebius  {Hist.  Ecd.,  lib.  vi.  14)  reports  Clement  as  saying  that  John, 
•eeing  that  the  scmatic  aspects  of  Christ's  ministry  were  shown  in  the  Gospel, 
and  exhorted  by  Hia  companions,  under  divine  inspiration  wrote  a  spiritoa] 
{mvfi,%rix'n)  gospel.     The  work  from  which  Eusebias  quotes  is  lost. 

'  Ueber  die  Reiigion,  p.  309. 


490  APOLOGETICS. 

and  behold  the  very  heart  of  Jesus  disclosed.*  Th« 
inquirer  who  desires  to  know  Jesus  truly  will  do  well  to 
regard  with  a  measure  of  suspicion  such  statements.  The 
fact  is  not  as  represented.  The  heart  of  the  man  Jesus  in 
its  rich  fulness  of  grace  and  spiritual  truth  is  more  ade- 
quately shown  in  the  first  three  Gospels  than  in  the  Fourth. 
The  writer  of  that  Gospel,  as  we  have  seen,  did  not  even 
propose  to  exhibit  in  detail  the  fulness  he  speaks  of  in 
the  prologue.  He  writes  for  readers  whom  he  assumes  to 
have  already  received  of  that  fulness,  and  by  some  means 
to  have  mastered  the  lesson  we  learn  now  through  the 
Synoptical  Gospels.'  Briefly  put  that  lesson  is:  God  in 
His  righteousness  and  grace  revealed  through  a  holy  loving 
human  character.  That  lesson  the  Fourth  Gospel  does  not 
cancel,  but  throughout  implies,  and  in  some  places  teaches. 
But  its  superadded  specific  lesson  is :  God  in  the  glory  of 
His  Majesty  and  Might  revealed  as  it  were  behind  a  lowly 
humanity,  the  glory  of  the  only  begotten  Son  shining 
through  the  fleshly  veil  As  teaching  that  lesson  it  may 
fitly  supplement  the  synoptical  presentation,  but  it  cannot 
possibly  supersede  it.* 

The  Logos  theorem  need  not  deter  from  such  supplement- 
ary  usa  It  is  not  the  key  to  the  GospeL  Instead  of 
explaining  everything,  it  is  itself  a  riddle  that  needs  to  be 

^  Vtde  Gloag,  Introduction  to  the  Johanniiu  Writings,  p.  166. 

'Beoas  says:  "The  Gospel  was  written  for  intelligent  disciples"  (£• 
Bil>le,  La  Theologit  Johannique,  p.  49).  Again :  "  The  anthor  has  not  wished 
to  teach  history,  he  supposes  it  blown,  and  aims  at  interpreting  it,"  p.  18. 

*  Beuss,  to  quote  him  once  more,  remarks  :  "  The  idea  of  Christiamty  in 
the  Fonrth  Gospel  is  not  intelligible  till  the  synoptical  presentation  has  been 
assimilated.  To  make  the  Johannean  theology  the  starting-point  is  to  mis- 
take the  intentions  of  the  Master  and  the  destination  of  the  Church,"  p.  107. 
On  the  other  handjWeizsacker  thinks  that  the  Johannean  Chriatusbild  is  aa 
iadispensable  supplement  of  the  synoptical,  and  that  only  through  it  have 
we  the  explanation  of  the  whole  higher  influence  of  Christ's  personality. 
"  The  great  charm  of  that  picture,  which  the  ancients  expressed  by  saying 
Ihat  the  other  Gospels  give  the  body,  this  the  soul  of  the  history,  and  which 
Btill  exercises  its  power  in  a  similar  sense,  rests  on  thii  that  the  whole  subse- 
quent effect  of  the  life,  and  the  results  thereof  for  faith,  are  here  introduced 
bito  the  histoiy  itselt" — Jku  ApoatoUsehe  Zeitalter,  p.  660, 


THB   FOURTH   OOSPBL.  491 

explained.     It  is  not  explained  by  an  offhand  reference  to 

Philo.  The  term  Logos  may  hail  directly  or  indirectly 
from  Alexandria,  but  not  the  idea  the  evangelist  associates 
with  it.^  The  Logos  of  Philo  is  an  intermediary  between 
a  transcendent,  absolute  deity,  and  a  world  with  which 
he  cai  have  no  relations.  God  is  not  so  conceived  in  this 
Gospel.  He  is  indeed  describod  as  One  whom  no  man  hath 
seen  at  any  time,  and  whom  the  only  begotten  Son  declares,' 
but  He  is  also  represented  as  loving  the  world  and  giving 
His  Son  for  its  salvation,'  and  as  raising  the  dead  and 
quickening  them,*  If  He  does  not  exercise  the  function  of 
judgment,  it  is  not  because  it  is  beneath  His  dignity  as  the 
Absolute,  but  because  He  deems  it  equitable  that  men 
should  be  judged  by  one  who  is  Himself  a  Son  of  man.* 
The  Son  does  not  work  instead  of  a  Father  too  exalted  to 
do  anything ;  He  works  with  and  as  the  Father.'  It  is  not 
the  Son  alone  who  dwells  with  the  faithful,  the  Father  also 
is  immanent  in  theuL^  The  idea  of  God  is  distinctively 
Christian.  So  is  the  idea  of  the  highest  good.  There  is 
indeed  frequent  mention  of  the  knowledge  of  truth  as  if 
the  summum  lonum  were  gnostically  conceived.  But  the 
knowledge  spoken  of  is  attained  through  the  doing  of  God's 
will.*  The  ruling  spirit  of  the  Gospel  is  not  gnostic  or 
speculative,  but  ethicaL  In  that  respect  it  is  worthy  to 
have  an  apostle  for  its  author.  And  in  no  respect  does  an 
apostolic  authorship  seem  incredible.  It  has  indeed  been 
pronounced  beyond  belief  that  a  companion  of  Jesus  could 
come  to  think  of  Him  as  the  Incarnate  Logos,  or  that  any 
power  either  of  faith  or  of  philosophy  could  so  extinguish 

•  So  Harnack,  Dogmengtschichte,  i.  85.  For  the  ertremist  type  of  the 
opposite  view,  vide  Thoma,  Die  Oenesia  dea  Jdhannts-Evangdium,  1882. 
For  Thoma  the  Fourth  Gk)Bpel  la  a  life  of  Jeana  after  the  type  of  Philo's 
Vita  Motia,  allegory  eyerywhere,  fact  nowhere. 

•  John  L  18.  »  John  iii.  16.  *  John  t.  21. 

'  John  T.  22,  27.  According  to  Oscar  Holtzmann  the  Logoe  idea  has  only 
the  value  of  a  HilfsvorsteUung  in  the  Gospel,  because  the  tranacendence  of 
God  ia  not  oarried  oat.  Da»  Johannea-Evangeliuim  untertmeht  imd  erkldrt, 
Bl  82 

•  Jolm  ▼.  19, 80L  '  John  xLr.  SH  *  Jokn  yiL  IT- 


492  APOLOGETICS. 

the  recollection  of  the  real  life  and  set  in  its  place  thii 
wonderful  image  of  a  Divine  Being.*  If  we  have  rightly 
regarded  the  Gospel  as  intended  for  the  use  of  disciples 
assumed  to  be  familiar  with  the  primitive  evangelic  tradi- 
tion, the  writer  must  have  conceived  it  possible  for  his 
readers  to  combine  the  two  images.  He  could  hardly  have 
thought  this  possible  for  them  unless  he  felt  it  to  be  pos- 
sible for  himself.  Why  then  should  it  be  possible  for  a 
scholar  of  John's  who  had  got  the  human  image  from  his 
lips,  or  from  current  tradition,  or  from  the  Synoptical 
Gospels,  and  impossible  for  John  himself,  who  had  got  that 
image  from  personal  intercourse  with  Jesus  ?  It  seems  as 
if  the  capacity  to  effect  the  combination  depended  not  on 
external  circumstances,  but  upon  spiritual  idiosyncrasy. 
Given  the  mystic  temperament  already  spoken  of,  the 
problem  seems  not  insoluble.  It  becomes  then  simply 
another  example  of  the  habit  of  regarding  all  things  «wJ 
specie  (sternitatis,  with  comparative  indifference  to  historical 
sequence,  the  state  of  exaltation  anticipated,  at  least  in 
part,  the  Son  of  man  even  while  on  earth  represented  as  in 
heaven. 

OHAPTEB  X. 

THE  LiaHT  Of  THE  WOSLa 

Liter ATUEE. — Ladd,  The  Doctrine  of  Sacred  Scripture;  Lux 
Mundi;  Martineau,  The  Seat  of  Authority  in  Religion; 
Stanton,  The  Place  of  Authority  in  Religious  Belief;  Gore, 
Bampton  Lectures  on  the  Ineamation  (Lect  viL) ;  Herrmann, 
Der  Begriff  der  Offenharung  (Vortrage  der  TheoL  Konferena 
VOL  Giessen)  ;  Clifford,  The  Inspiration  and  the  Authority  of 
the  Bible;  Briggs,  The  Bible,  the  Church,  and  the  Reason; 
Leopold  Monod,  Le  Probleme  de  VAvioriti,  189L 

To  the  burning  question.  Who  or  what  is  the  seat  of 
ultimate  authority  in  religion  ?  the  most  recent  apologetic 
^  Weizsacker,  Dm  ApottolUche  ZeUalttr,  p.  686. 


THB  UOHT  OF  THE  WORLD.  493 

tristfwerg,  Christ :  Christ,  not  other  religious  masters,  not  the 
inrlxvidual  reason,  not  the  Church,  not  even  the  Bible. 

The  lordship  of  Christ  over  the  conscience  is  a  common- 
place accepted  by  all  Christians.  But  it  is  the  fate  of 
commonplaces,  especially  in  religion,  to  be  neglected  in 
favour  of  propositions  less  fundamental,  more  doubtful,  much 
controverted,  and  which,  just  because  they  are  the  subjects 
of  controversy,  excite  exceptional  interest  and  monopolise 
attention.  So  it  happened  that  the  great  commandments 
of  the  Decalogue  were  made  of  none  effect  by  Eabbinical 
traditions,  the  offspring  of  zeal  for  the  keeping  of  the 
divinely-given  law.  A  similar  mischance  has  overtaken 
the  authority  of  Jesus,  For  one  section  of  Christendom 
the  Church  has  taken  His  place  as  Lord,  for  another  the 
Bible ;  in  either  case  without  intention,  and  for  the  mort 
part  without  consciousness,  of  disloyalty.  The  question  as 
to  the  seat  of  authority  is  sometimes  formulated  without 
reference  to  Christ,  the  only  alternatives  thought  of  being 
the  Bible,  the  Church,  or  reason.  In  view  of  such  facts,  it 
is  incumbent  to  resurrectionise  the  buried  commonplace, 
and  to  reassert  with  emphasis  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Lord 
of  Christendom,  and  the  Light  of  the  World. 

Authority  has  been  not  only  misplaced,  but  so  grievously 
misrepresented  in  its  nature  that  the  very  word,  as  em- 
ployed in  the  sphere  of  religion,  has  become  an  offence  to 
the  friends  of  truth  and  freedom.  It  has  been  exercised  in 
the  name  of  God  with  brute  force:  sometimes  in  behalf  of 
the  false,  creating  a  deep  sense  of  wrong ;  sometimes  in 
support  of  truth,  creating  against  it  a  violent  prejudice.  It 
has  been  claimed  for  Scripture  misconceived  as  a  Book  of 
Dogma,  having  for  its  raison  d^itre  to  teach  a  system  of 
doctrinal  mysteries  undiscoverable  by  reason,  and  incom- 
prehensible by  reason,  with  the  result  that  revelation  has 
been  made  to  appear  the  antithesis  of  reason.  The  claim 
has  been  made  to  rest  on  the  external  evidence  of 
miracles  and  prophecies  conceived  of  as  purely  evidential 
adjuncts   of   a   doctrinal  revelation;  evidence    capable  at 


494  APOLOGETICS. 

moet,  when  ekHftiUj  stated,  of  sflenefa^  oppoBition,  but 
having  no  power  to  produce  religious  faith  in  a  revelation 
not  in  itself  acceptable  or  self-evidencing.  In  view  of 
these  abuses,  which  form  a  large  chapter  in  the  history  of 
Christianity,  it  is  of  urgent  importance  to  recall  attention 
to  the  claims  of  Christ  to  be  the  Master,  and  to  bid  such 
as  labour  under  the  burden  of  doubt  listen  to  His  voice 
when  He  says,  "  Learn  from  me."  So  doing  they  shall 
escape,  not  only  from  doubt,  but  from  every  form  of 
usurpation ;  from  all  that  savours  of  Rabbinism  in  religion, 
and  from  the  irritation  inflicted  on  reason  and  conscience 
by  its  galling  yoke.  For  there  is,  indeed,  in  Jesus  and 
His  teaching  a  "  sweet  reasonableness."  His  yoke  is  easy  ; 
His  authority  is  gentle  as  the  light  of  day.  What  He 
says  about  God  and  man  and  their  relations  needs  no 
elaborate  system  of  evidences  to  commend  it.  It  is  self- 
evidencing.  It  is  rest-giving.  Heart,  conscience,  reason 
rest  in  it  Men  who  have  long  wandered  in  darkness  leap 
for  joy  when  at  last  they  come  to  the  school  of  Jesus,  and 
discover  in  Him  the  true  Master  of  the  spirit.  Such  was 
the  experience  of  men  in  ancient  times  coming  to  Jesus 
from  the  schools  of  Greek  philosophy ;  such  is  the  experience 
of  many  in  our  day  who  had  despaired  of  attaining  to 
religious  certainty. 

Christ  is  not  the  only  claimant  to  lordship  in  religion. 
He  divides  the  world  with  other  masters.  In  view  of  the 
wide  prevalence  of  Buddhism  and  Mahometanism,  it  may 
seem  bold  to  call  Christ  the  Light  of  the  World,  and  as  if 
modesty  required  us  to  be  content  with  the  ascription  to 
Him  of  a  merely  provincial  authority.  But  no  Christian 
can  acquiesce  in  this  compromise.  Faith  demands  for  its 
Object  a  universal  sway :  that  at  the  name  of  Jesus  every 
knee  should  bow,  and  every  tongue  confess  that  He  is  Lord 
to  the  glory  of  God  the  Father.  And,  if  necessary,  faith 
will  undertake  to  justify  its  demand  by  a  comparison  of 
Jesus  with  other  religious  initiator&     Such  a  comparison, 


THE  UOHT  OF   THB   WOBLD.  496 

indeed,  ii  not  indispensable  to  legitimise  the  Christian's 
exclusive  homage  to  Jesus,  nor  in  discussions  on  the  seat 
of  authority  in  religion  does  it  usually  enter  as  an  element 
In  these  days,  however,  when  the  scientific  study  of  religion 
on  the  comparative  method  is  so  much  in  vogue,  it  is 
well,  both  for  confirmation  of  the  faith  of  the  individual 
Christian,  and  for  the  vindication  of  missionary  enterprise, 
to  be  ready  with  an  answer  to  those  who  ask  us  to  show 
cause  why  Christianity  should  supersede  all  other  religions. 
A  course  of  study  on  "  Christ  and  other  Masters,"  *  if  not 
an  essential  department  of  apologetics,  would  be  at  least  a 
very  helpful  special  discipline.  It  is  a  study  which  a 
believer  in  Christ  has  no  temptation  to  shun.  Christ  gains 
by  comparison.  As  in  our  studies  in  the  second  book  of 
this  work  we  found  that  occasional  comparisons  with  con- 
temporary religions  served  to  evince  the  superiority  of  the 
religion  of  Israel,  so  we  should  find  on  placing  Jesus  side 
by  side  with  Buddha,  Confucius,  Zoroaster,  Mahomet,  that 
He  stood  visibly  higher  than  they.  This  line  of  inquiry 
cannot,  of  course,  be  gone  into  here ;  all  that  is  possible  is 
to  indicate  its  utility,  and  to  explain  briefly  the  method  of 
the  argument 

The  method  is  comparative.  The  argument  goes  to  show 
that  Jesus  is  wiser  than  other  masters ;  that  the  Christian 
religion  is  superior  to  other  religions  in  all  important 
respects,  and  therefore,  on  the  principle  of  the  survival  of 
the  fittest,  ought  to  supersede  them.  Such  a  mode  of 
reasoning  may  appear  unsatisfactory  to  an  enthusiastie 
faith«  Nothing  will  satisfy  it  but  proof  that  Christianity 
is  not  only  better  than  this  or  that  religion,  but  the  best 
possible,  the  absolute  religion,  and  therefore  destined  eventu 
ally  to  become  universally  prevalent  By  all  means  let 
such  a  proof  be  led  if  it  can ;  yet  let  not  the  other  less 
ambitious,  more  circuitous,  line  of  argument  be  despised. 
Unsatisfactory  as  it  may  appear,  it  was  the  line  of  argu- 
ment pursued  by  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebiewi 
I  lUi  k  tlM  title  <4  a  work  by  Mr.  Eludwick  on  the  leligionfl  of  the  world. 


496  APOLOGETICS. 

in  his  endeavour  to  establish  the  claims  of  Christianity  t« 
be  the  perfect,  and  therefore  the  final  religion.  "  The  best 
possible,"  was  his  thesis,  but  his  method  of  proof  was 
"  Christ  better  than  prophets,  better  than  angels,  better 
than  Moses,  better  than  Aaron ;  therefore  listen  to  Him 
when  He  speaks,  more  attentively  than  to  any  other  speaker 
in  God's  nama"  It  cannot  be  amiss  to  follow  His  example, 
and,  extending  his  argument  beyond  biblical  limits,  to  say : 
Christ  better  than  Buddha,  better  than  Confucius,  better 
than  Mahomet,  better  than  every  name  that  has  been  held 
in  reverent  esteem ;  therefore  hear  ye  Him,  all  peoples  that 
dwell  upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  It  were  well  if  mission- 
aries were  able  to  issue  modern  versions  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  adapted  to  their  respective  spheres  of  labour, 
and  furnished  with  wise  citations  of  the  facts  which  justify 
the  demand  they  make  for  earnest  heed  to  the  Yoioe  of 
Jesus. 

The  comparative  argument  has  the  merit  of  simplicity. 
It  can  be  understood  and  appreciated  by  all,  learned  or 
unlearned,  black  or  white,  savage  or  civilised.  There  is 
that  in  every  man  that  makes  him  ascribe  a  certain 
authority  to  all  wisdom  and  goodness.  Every  human 
being  tends  to  bow  before  a  saint  or  a  sage.  Every  human 
being  has  further  the  power,  more  or  less  developed,  to  dis- 
criminate between  degrees  of  sanctity  and  wisdom,  as  he 
has  the  power  to  see  that  the  light  of  the  sun  is  greater 
than  the  light  of  the  moon.  "  God  made  two  great  lights ; 
the  greater  light  to  rule  the  day,  and  the  lesser  light  to 
rule  the  night"  ^  How  shall  I  know  which  of  the  two 
lights,  the  sun  and  the  moon,  is  entitled  to  be  regarded  as 
the  greater  light  ?  It  is  a  matter  of  eyesight,  of  the  power 
to  appreciate  the  difference  between  daylight  and  night- 
light  If  the  superiority  of  daylight  is  not  evident  to  my 
eye,  all  the  argument  in  the  world  will  not  convince  me  of 
it  But  there  never  was  a  man,  having  the  use  of  his  eyes, 
who  needed  any  such  argument    Even  so  there  ia  in  th« 

» a«B.  L  l«. 


THE  LIGHT  OF   THE   WOKLD.  497 

natural  oonscienoe  a  faculty  bo  see  that  one  light  in  the 
moral  world  is  greater  than  another.  Show  a  man,  even  in 
Africa,  first  the  moon  and  then  the  sun,  and  he  will  see  for 
himself  that  the  sun  is  the  greater  light,  to  be  welcomed, 
as  men  welcome  the  dawn  of  day. 

The  comparative  argument  has  the  great  recommenda- 
tion that  it  permits  frank  recognition  of  all  the  good  that  is 
in  ethnic  religions.  To  praise  the  sun  it  is  not  necessary 
to  maintain  that  he  is  the  only  light.  You  can  recognise 
the  moon,  and  even  wax  eloquent  on  the  weird  beauty  of 
her  dim  light,  without  compromising  the  claims  of  the  ruler 
of  the  day.  Still  less  difi&cult  ought  it  to  be  for  the 
Christian  to  acknowledge  the  minute  lights  of  pagan  night, 
and  to  say  in  thankfulness,  not  in  scorn,  "He  made  the 
stars  also." 

Among  the  rival  claimants  to  be  the  seat  of  authority  in 
religion  is  the  individual  reason.  The  light  within  the 
only,  and  the  sufficient,  source  of  revelation,  and  the  test  of 
all  alleged  revelations:  such  was  the  watchword  of  the 
deists,  and  there  are  those  in  modem  times  who  re-echo 
the  sentiment.  In  the  case  of  the  deists  the  thesis  was 
asserted  with  a  self-complacent  and  even  contemptuous  dis- 
regard, not  only  of  the  light  from  above,  but  even  of  the 
aid  derivable  from  the  wisdom  of  the  past,  or  from  a  care- 
fully conducted  education.  The  plain  uninstructed  man, 
even  the  savage,  might  know  all  that  needs  to  be  known  of 
God  as  well  as,  nay  even  better  than,  the  most  learned 
philosopher.  Modern  rationalists  have  a  more  adequate 
sense  of  the  weakness  of  the  individual  reason,  of  the  need 
of  extraneous  aids,  and  of  the  vast  extent  to  which  every 
man  is  indebted  to  the  religious  history  of  the  past,  and  to 
the  inspirations  of  the  present.  The  idea  of  the  social 
organism  has  taken  firm  possession  of  the  public  mind,  and 
all  realise  the  truth  of  Paul's  saying,  "  None  of  us  liveth  to 
himself"  Nevertheless  there  are  those  who  teach  that 
human  reason,  or  rather  God  immanent  in  human  reason, 

Si 


498  APOLOGETIOI* 

IB  the  seat  of  religious  authority,  that  nothing  can  properly 
be  described  as  revelation  except  such  religious  intuitiona 
as  come  to  ns  though  the  action  of  reason,  and  that  all  aid 
from  without,  from  whatever  quarter  coming,  must  take  the 
form  of  a  stimulus  "  which  wakes  the  echoes  in  ourselves, 
and  is  thereby  instantly  transferred  from  external  attesta- 
tion to  self-evidence."  * 

In  criticising  this  theory  it  is  not  necessary  to  take  up 
the  position  of  utter  antagonism,  and  to  pronounce  it 
entirely  false.  There  is  much  in  it  with  which  one  can 
cordially  sympathise.  We  can  repudiate,  for  example,  not 
less  earnestly  than  Dr.  Martineau  and  those  who  agree 
with  him,  the  old-fashioned  antithesis  between  reason  and 
revelation  as  belonging  to  an  exploded  deistic  conception  of 
God's  relation  to  the  world  as  purely  transcendent.  The 
light  from  above  must  not  be  placed  in  abstract  opposition 
to  the  light  within,  as  if  the  two  had  nothing  in  common. 
The  light  from  above  is  no  light  for  me  until  it  has  become 
a  light  within  shining  in  its  own  self-evidence.  It  is  in 
vain  that  the  sun  shines  if  I  have  not  an  eye  to  see  its 
beams.  Then,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  the  light  shineth 
in  darkness,  and  the  darkness  comprehends  it  not  But 
the  light  may  be  there  all  the  same,  and  it  may  be  owing 
to  some  disability  in  me  that  it  is  not  a  light  within  as 
well  as  a  light  without  And  this  is  one  direction  in  which 
the  rationalistic  theory  is  at  fault  It  does  not  take  suffi- 
ciently into  account  the  disabilities  of  reason.  It  assumes 
reason  to  be  in  a  normal  condition,  whereas  its  eye  may  be 
dim  through  the  influence  of  an  abnormal  moral  condition. 
Dr.  Martineau  has  much  to  say  of  the  faith-woven  veil 
that  hides  the  face  of  the  true  Jesus.  He  has  not  suffi- 
ciently borne  in  mind  the  veil  that  is  on  the  face  of  the 
human  soul,  preventing  it  from  seeing  the  light  of  God. 
Must  that  not  be  taken  into  account  in  order  to  understand 
the  religious  history  of  the  world  ?  Whence  comes  it  that 
men  have  been  so  backward  in  learning  the  knowledge  (A 
I  MartinMMi,  The  Seat  of  Authority  in  RdigUm,  prefaee,  p^  tL 


THE  LIGHT   OF  THE   WORLD.  499 

Qod  f  Why  must  the  heathen  religions,  after  the  most 
generous  allowances,  be  pronounced  unsuccessful  t  Why  is 
it  that  the  utterances  of  sages  are  often  so  disappointing 
and  so  contradictory,  and  that  the  wisest  words  of  the  wise 
have  taken  the  form  of  a  sigh  for  a  surer  word  than  any 
they  have  heard  from  others,  or  have  themselves  been  able 
to  speak  ?  It  is  on  account  of  the  moral  evil  that  is  in 
the  world,  and  partly  also  on  account  of  the  physical  evil 
that  oppresses  the  life  of  man.  By  reason  of  the  one  the 
sense  for  the  true  and  the  good  is  blunted,  by  reason  of 
the  other  men  have  not  the  courage  to  trust  their  spiritual 
intuitions,  and  are  the  victims  of  an  incurable  doubt  of 
the  goodwill  of  God.  On  both  accounts  there  is  room  and 
need  enough  for  a  surer  word,  if  any  such  might  be  forth- 
coming. 

This  brings  us  to  another  defect  of  the  theory  under 
consideration,  viz.  its  failure  to  recognise  the  possibility  of 
some  one  appearing  in  the  world  possessing  an  altogether 
unique  exceptional  power  of  spiritual  intuition,  and  of  so 
speaking  of  God  as  to  wake  the  "  echoes  in  ourselves  " — 
making  us  see  things  as  we  had  not  seen  them  before,  or 
trust  thoughts  of  our  own  hearts  which  had  before  seemed 
too  good  news  to  be  true.  It  is  not  necessary  that  all 
men  should  be  in  the  dark ;  it  is  conceivable  that  there 
should  be  One  in  whom  was  the  true  life  and  the  true 
light,  whose  mind  was  the  express  image  and  radiance  of 
the  mind  of  God.  Such  an  one  the  Christian  finds  in 
Jesus.  And  it  is  because  Jesus  has  for  him  this  value 
that  he  recognises  Him  as  an  ultimate  religious  authority. 
It  costs  him  no  effort  to  do  sa  He  is  not  conscious  of  any 
violence  or  humiliation  done  to  his  reason  in  bowing  to 
the  authority  of  Christ  For  Christ  speaks  with  authority 
Just  because  He  does  not  speak  hy  authority,  like  the  Eabbis 
citing  the  names  of  celebrated  teachers  in  support  of  state- 
ments possessing  no  intrinsic  power  to  commend  themselves 
to  acceptance.  He  speaks  as  the  spontaneous  mouthpieoe 
of  God,  oi  nature,  of  the  forces  of  human  nature  working 


600  APOLOGEnO& 

down  in  His  souL  God  reveals  Himself  to  His  spirit  as  a 
Father,  and  He  constantly  calls  Him  Father.  The  world 
in  its  beauty  and  sublimity  unfolds  itself  to  His  eye,  and 
He  speaks  with  inimitable  simplicity  of  the  lilies,  birds, 
and  stormy  winds.  Almighty  pity  stirs  His  bosom  as  He 
witnesses  the  sin  and  misery  of  men,  and  He  speaks  to  the 
fallen  the  message  of  pardon  and  regeneration.  A  vision 
of  heavenly  purity  and  goodness  bursts  on  His  view,  and  He 
discourses  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  in  golden  sentences 
declares  who  are  its  citizens :  Blessed  the  poor,  the  meek, 
the  pure,  the  peaceable,  the  passionate  lovers  of  righteous- 
ness. The  sweet  reasonableness  of  all  this  is  irresistible. 
It  is  the  very  reason  of  God,  the  universal  reason,  find- 
ing normal,  perfect,  adequate  expression,  and  correcting, 
strengthening,  enlarging,  in  one  word,  "educating"*  the 
reason  of  man.  Truly  the  yoke  of  this  Teacher  is  easy 
His  way  of  teaching,  and  the  substance  of  His  teaching, 
show  at  once  the  objective  reality  of  revelation,  and  its 
intimate  relation  to  reason.  He  says  things  not  said  before, 
or  not  so  said  as  to  be  of  use,  yet  recognisable  at  once 
when  said,  as  true  and  worthy  of  all  acceptation.  Take  the 
one  Instance  of  calling  God  Father.  To  all  practical  intents 
this  was  a  new  name  for  God,  as  Jesus  used  it  Yet  the 
new  name  was  recognisable  at  once  by  unsophisticated 
consciences  as  expressive  of  the  deepest  truth  concerning 
God,  and  the  most  welcome.  How  strange  that  men  should 
have  been  so  long  in  finding  out  a  truth  so  simple  and  so 
acceptable !  The  thought  might  easily  suggest  itself  even 
to  the  most  primitive  men  that  God  was  to  all  men  what 
a  father  is  to  his  family.  Nay,  it  had  suggested  itself  to 
the  early  Indian  Aryans,  witness  the  name  JDyaiLs-pitar, 
heaven-Father.  But  men  had  not  the  courage  to  trust 
their  own  spiritual  intuitions.     They  could  not  seriously 

*  Mr.  Gon  well  says :  "  All  legltiauto  •nthorlty  representi  the  higher 
rmtfon,  educating  the  derelopment  of  the  lower.  Legitimate  religious 
tathority  represents  the  reason  of  Grod  educating  the  reason  of  man,  and 
oommnnicatlng  itself  to  it." — Bamjpton  Lecture*  on  t\e  Incamatton,  pw  18L 


IHB   LIGHT  OF  THE  WOSLDi.  601 

beliere  anything  so  good  concerning  God.  An  evil 
conscience  made  that  difficult,  and  also  the  manifold 
tragic  experiences  of  life.  And  it  is  in  this  connection 
that  the  need  and  utility  of  an  objective  revelation  be- 
come very  apparent  The  function  of  revelation  is  not, 
as  has  been  supposed,  to  reveal  truths  which  the  human 
mind  is  unable  to  conceive.*  It  is  rather  to  convert 
conceivable  possibilities  into  indubitable  realities,"  to 
turn,  e.g.,  the  fancy  or  dream  of  God  as  a  Father  into  a 
sober  fact  Christ  did  that  by  Himself  believing  with  all 
His  heart  in  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  and  by  being  Himself 
a  heroically  loyal  Son.  The  revelation  lay  not  in  what  He 
said  so  much  as  in  His  own  personal  religion  and  conduct 
He  realised  the  good  in  His  own  character,  and  He  believed 
in  spite  of  all  temptations  to  the  contrary  that  God  wills 
the  good,  and  by  His  almighty  providence  works  incessantly 
and  supremely  for  its  realisation.  And  simply  in  virtue  of 
being  the  one  man  in  history  who  has  done  these  two 
things  perfectly,  Jesus  is  a  most  veritable  and  valuable 
objective  revelation,  mightily  helping  us  to  be  the  sons  of 
God,  and  to  believe  stedfastly  in  Him  as  our  Father,  and 
winning  from  those  He  helps  joyful  recognition  as  their 
authoritative  Master. 

Thus  far  all  believers  can  go  in  acknowledging  their 
indebtedness  to  Jesus.  Some  go  much  further  and  say. 
It  is  owing  to  Jesus  that  we  really  believe  that  there 
is  a  God  at  all.  That  is  to  say,  they  claim  for  Jesus  not 
merely  to  have  brought  our  spiritual  intuitions  out  of  a 
state  of  mere  virtuality  into  conscious  vigorous  exercise, 
but  to  have  given  us  that  knowledge  of  God  which  men 
have  striven  to  acquire  by  the  methods  of  natural  theology. 
Such  thinkers  disallow  the  ordinary  proofs  for  the  being 
and  nature  of  God,  drawn  from  the  idea  of  God  in  the 

1  Bach  Is  the  vitw  of  W.  R.  Oreg  in  The  Creed  ^Chri$Undom,  mi.  fl, 
f.  172. 

*  Vide  thia  riaw  stated  at  greater  length  in  Th4  Ohkf  End  qfRevela^OH, 
pp.  27-31. 


602  APOLOGETICa. 

human  mind,  or  from  the  appearance  of  design  in  natnro.  oi 
from  the  existence  of  the  world  as  a  whole.  They  regard 
these  reasonings  as  fine  words  which  scholars  at  their  ease 
coin  in  their  studies,  but  which  when  the  heart  is  tried  by 
the  sense  of  sin,  and  by  the  darkness  of  life,  have  really  no 
persuasive  power,  but  leave  men  in  doubt  whether  God  be 
indeed  good,  or  whether  He  even  so  much  as  be.  It  is 
only  when  the  eye  is  directed  to  Christ  that  there  arises 
for  the  man  who  sitteth  in  darkness  a  great  light  by  which 
he  sees  at  once  what  God  is  and  that  God  is.*  This  view 
is  a  revolt  against  the  traditional  method  of  theologians, 
which  lays  a  foundation  in  natural  theology  for  revelation, 
nothing  doubting  that  its  reasonings  are  sound,  and  its 
results  sure.  While  not  prepared  to  take  sides  with  the 
authors  of  this  revolt,  or  to  accept  offhand  the  philosophical 
presuppositions  on  which  it  rests,  I  feel  considerable  sym- 
pathy with  the  religious  attitude  therein  assumed.  How 
much  or  how  little  the  so-called  proofs  of  natural  theology 
will  actually  prove  for  us  depends  on  the  state  of  mind  in 
which  we  enter  on  their  examination.  We  find  what  we 
bring.  We  are  convinced  at  the  end  because  we  were 
convinced  before  we  began;  and  that  we  were  so  con- 
vinced may  be  due  to  a  Christian  nurture  which  has 
saturated  our  whole  spiritual  nature  with  the  idea  of  God 
from  our  earliest  years.  In  this  view  even  Dr.  Martin  eau 
80  far  concurs.  He  holds  that  the  order  in  which  natural 
and  revealed  religion  are  usually  placed  must  be  inverted ; 
that  the  reasonings  of  the  natural  theologian  '*  lead  to 
explicit  theism  because  they  start  from  implicit  theism, 
which  therefore  stands  as  an  initial  revelation  out  of  which 
is  evolved  the  whole  organism  of  natural  religion."*  The 
point  of  divergence  between  Dr.  Martineau  and  the  school 

^  So  Professor  Hermuuin  of  Marburg  in  Dtr  Begrlff  der  Offenbarung,  an 
address  delivered  at  the  conference  in  Giessen  in  1887.  The  addresses  were 
published  in  1888  in  collective  form  undjr  the  title  Vortrdgt  der  tkeologi 
gefien  Kon/eren*  tu  Oituen.  Herrmann's  essay  ii  a  rvej  fresh  dlBOOSsion  of 
the  idea  of  revelation. 

*  Beat  qfA$Ukontg  im  B^igiim,  pp.  812,  SIS. 


TEE  UOHT  OF  THE  WORUK  503 

of  Ritschl,  as  represented,  for  example,  by  Herrmann,  is  this : 
For  the  Euglish  theologian  "  revealed  religion  "  means  the 
thoughts  of  God,  which  come  to  men  intuitively  through 
the  natural  action  of  their  own  reason  ;  for  the  German 
theologians  it  means  the  thoughts  of  God  which  give  rest 
to  reason,  conscience,  and  heart,  but  which  came  to  us 
through  the  knowledge  of  Christ,  and  which  but  for  His 
appearance  in  the  world  we  never  should  have  had  as  a 
living  belief  acting  as  an  effective  force  on  our  livea^ 

On  the  authority  of  the  Church  it  is  not  necessary  to  say 
much  in  general  apologetic.  One  who  has,  after  a  spiritual 
struggle,  at  last  got  himself  grounded  in  the  essentials  of  the 
Christian  faith  may  be  left  to  adjust  his  relations  to  the 
community  of  believers  the  best  way  he  can.  To  those,  on 
the  other  hand,  who  need  help  in  fundamental  problems, 
it  would  not  be  expedient  to  speak  of  the  Church,  except 
indeed  in  the  way  of  apology,  not  as  one  claiming  for 
her  authority,  but  rather  pleading  that  a  considerate  and 
generous  view  should  be  taken  of  her  shortcomings.  Pre- 
judice against  Christianity  arising  from  the  sins  of  the 
ecclesiastical  organisation  that  bears  Christ's  name,  and 
professes  to  be  guided  by  His  spirit,  is  certainly  one  of  the 
facts  with  which  a  defender  of  the  faith  has  to  reckon.  He 
may  try  to  dispose  of  it  as  a  source  of  unbelief  by  pointing 
out  that  the  sins  of  the  Church  have  to  a  large  extent  been 
sins  of  infirmity  rather  than  of  wilful  disloyalty ;  that  it  is 
no  presumption  against  the  supernatural  origin  or  initial 
purity  of  the  Christian  religion  that  in  its  subsequent 
development  it  was  left  to  run  its  natural  course,  exposed 
to  the  degeneracy  and  corruption  that  are  apt  to  befall 
everything  that  man  has  to  do  with ;  and  that  Christ  Him- 
self was  under  no  misapprehension  as  to  the  future  for- 
tunes of  the  kingdom  of  God  in  this  world,  but  predicted 
ooming  evils  and  described  them  in  the  most  sombre 
ooloanL 

*  Vidt  Uie  addteM  referred  to  in  note  1,  p.  60ft 


604  APOLoosnca. 

That  a  society  of  men  professing  in  common  a  religion 
mnst  in  the  nature  of  things  exercise  over  its  members  an 
influence  in  a  very  real  sense  authoritative,  is  self-evident 
The  claim  of  the  Church  to  authority,  viewed  in  the  light 
of  this  axiom,  is  not  exceptional ;  it  is  simply  a  particular 
instance  of  a  universal  law.  What  has  to  be  remarked 
concerning  the  Church,  considered  ideally,  is  the  peculiai 
reasonableness  of  her  claim.  What  is  the  ideal  Church  ? 
It  is  a  body  of  men  believing  Jesus  Christ  to  be  the  Son 
of  God,  with  a  faith  not  received  by  tradition  but  communi- 
cated directly  by  the  Father  in  heaven  to  each  believer. 
Each  man  for  himself  has  clear  insight  into  the  divine 
worth  of  Jesus,  passionately  loves  the  goodness  exhibited 
in  His  character,  and  with  sincere,  deep  fervour  reverences 
Him  as  the  Lord.  What  a  close,  mighty  bond  of  union  this 
common  relation  to  the  Head !  What  a  power  the  mutual 
cohesion  thence  arising  gives  the  society  as  a  whole  over 
the  individual  member !  How  much  he  will  bear  in  the 
way  of  authoritative  decision  of  doubtful  matters  of  opinion 
and  conduct,  rather  than  break  away  from  so  blessed 
a  fellowship  I  And  with  what  good  right  the  society  will 
be  felt  to  decide,  whether  in  formally  assembled  council,  as 
when  the  question  of  circumcision  was  debated  at  Jeru- 
salem, or  by  well  understood,  though  not  distinctly  formu- 
lated, pervading  sentiment  I  The  pure  in  heart  see  God 
and  truth  clearly.  Therefore  what  they  bind  or  loose  on 
earth  shall  be  bound  or  loosed  in  heaven.  Their  judg- 
ments have  real,  not  merely  technical  value.  What  they 
approve  is  worthy  of  approbation ;  what  they  condemn,  of 
condemnation.  If  one  or  more  members  of  the  society 
find  themselves  out  of  accord  with  their  brethren  they  will 
distrust  their  own  judgment,  and  loyally  acquiesce  in  the 
judgment  of  the  majority,  which  will  be  made  easy  for 
them  to  do  by  the  consideration  of  the  latter  for  all  sincere 
difference  of  opinion,  and  by  the  supreme  desire  on  their 
part  also  to  maintain  at  all  hazards  the  fellowship  unbroken. 
In   such  a  society  it  is  not  so  much  one  part  that  rules 


XHB  UGHT  or  THB  WORLD.  505 

over  another,  as  love  that  rules  over  all ;  now  constraining 
the  few  to  submit  to  the  many,  now  constraining  the  many 
to  defer  to  the  few,  all  alike  acting  in  a  spirit  of  loyal 
devotion  to  the  common  Lord. 

A  fair  ideal  indeed,  but  it  hardly  ever  existed  on  this  earth, 
at  least  it  exists  no  longer.  If  the  "  true  "  Church  mean 
the  Church  of  the  ideal,  then  there  is  no  "  true  "  Church 
in  this  world.  There  are  many  religious  societies  called 
Christian  Churches.  They  cannot  all  be  right  in  their 
doctrine ;  none  of  them  may  be  altogether  right  in  their 
spirit.  In  view  of  this  possibility  the  important  question 
is  not  the  abstract  one  as  to  the  nature  and  limits  of  Church 
authority,  but  what  Church  has  the  moral  right  to  exercise 
authority  ?  Church  members  may  answer  the  question  in 
favour  of  their  own  communion,  and  by  a  mental  effort 
invest  it  with  the  attributes  of  the  ideaL  That  will  some- 
times be  hard  work,  and  what  is  more  important,  it  may 
be  dangerous.  It  is  possible  to  be  too  submissive  a  son  of 
mother  Church.  Circumstances  are  easily  conceivable  in 
which  it  might  be  said  with  truth :  the  more  of  a  Church- 
man the  less  of  a  Christian.  In  such  circumstances  it  is 
necessary  to  rebel  against  the  Church  in  order  to  be 
loyal  to  Jesus,  to  be  aAti-ecclesiastical  in  order  to  avoid 
being  anti-Christian. 

Speaking  generally,  with  reference  to  the  actual  situation, 
it  may  be  said  that  a  believing  man  does  well  to  be  jealous 
of  Church  power  for  Christ's  sake.  The  Church  is  a  mother, 
and  like  that  of  all  mothers  her  influence  is  helpful  up  to 
a  certain  point,  and  beyond  that  is  apt  to  be  a  hindrance 
to  spiritual  development  She  is  fond  of  managing,  and 
does  not  readily  recognise  that  in  the  case  of  many  of  her 
grown-up  sons  the  best  thing  she  can  do  is  to  leave  them 
to  the  guidance  of  a  higher  wisdom.  The  ecclesiastical 
spirit  does  not  foster,  or  value,  vigorous,  intractable  indi- 
viduality. It  has  too  often  driven  men  of  this  type  into 
dissent  or  into  banishment,  thinking  it  better  they  should 
be  withont  than  that   the  comfort  oi  passive   obedience 


606  AFOLOQEnca 

should  be  disturbed  withiit  Tet  what  is  a  Church  withool 
such  men — men  of  earnest  thought  and  robust  moral  senti- 
ments, but  a  salt  without  a  savour  ?  To  repress  or  oppress 
spiritual  independence  is  to  quench  the  spirit  of  Christ 
It  was  observed  of  the  men  that  had  been  with  Jesus 
that  they  were  bold :  they  had  the  courage  of  their 
opinions.  God  often  speaks  through  minorities,  even 
through  solitary  individuals  who  are  in  a  minority  of  one. 
It  was  so  in  the  Hebrew  Church,  even  when  the  nation 
not  the  individual  was  the  social  unit,  and  when  to  break 
with  national  custom  was  considered  a  crime.  It  is  so 
still  in  the  Church  of  the  New  Testament.  And  the 
Church  needs  constantly  to  be  reminded  of  the  fact.  The 
value  of  energetic  personalities  endowed  with  initiative  is 
now  fully  recognised  in  science  and  in  commerce.  Dis- 
coverers and  inventors  are  welcome.  But  in  religion,  more 
than  in  any  other  human  interest,  the  power  of  custom 
is  strong.  The  passion  for  solidarity,  the  intolerance  of 
dissent,  characteristic  of  uncivilised  men,  still  survives 
there.  In  one  aspect  it  commands  respect,  for  there  is 
conscience  in  it.  But  there  is  more  than  conscience ;  there 
is  moral  disease.  It  is  the  form  which  egotism  assumes  in 
the  religious  world.  Church  authority  is  enforced  against 
individuals  by  men  who  are  themselves,  perhaps  uncon- 
sciously, guilty  of  individualism  of  the  most  offensive  type. 

No  one  who,  with  intelligence,  asserts  the  supreme 
authority  of  Christ  can  possibly  mean  to  disparage  the 
Scriptures  of  either  Testament.  They  are  writings  which 
"  testify  of  Him,"  and  in  virtue  of  this  fact  must  possess 
for  every  Christian  a  unique  authoritative  value.  They 
are  His  own  word,  and  the  channel  through  which  He 
exercises  authority.  In  cherishing  a  high  and  reverent 
esteem  for  the  Scriptures,  we  only  follow  Christ's  own 
example.  He  ever  spoke  of  the  Hebrew  writings  in  a 
manner  involving  express  or  implied  recognition  of  their 
divine  troth  and  worth.     Thus,  to  take  a  single  typical 


THE   UGHT   OF   THE   WORLD.  607 

instance^  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  speaking  as  the 
Herald  and  Legislator  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  He  said . 
"  Think  not  that  I  am  come  to  destroy  the  law  or  the 
prophets :  I  am  not  come  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil ; "  law 
and  prophets  standing  for  the  whole  Old  Testament. 
Christ's  sincere,  deep  reverence  for  the  Scriptures  becomes 
invested  with  peculiar  significance  when  viewed  in  con- 
nection with  His  intense  antagonism  to  Eabbinism.  That 
antagonism  means  that  nothing  in  the  piety  of  Jesus  was  a 
matter  of  custom  or  mechanical  acceptance  of  tradition. 
He  believed  in  nothing  as  true  or  good  simply  because  it 
passed  for  such  in  the  religious  world  of  His  time.  His  faith 
and  reverence  were  invariably  based  on  spiritual  insight 
and  personal  conviction.  Not  because  the  scribes  busied 
themselves  about  the  sacred  book  as  the  one  supremely 
important  subject  of  study,  did  He  deem  it  worthy  of 
devout  attention.  On  the  contrary,  as  used  by  them  the 
book  must  have  been  repulsive  to  Him.  He  had  to  clear 
His  mind  of  whatever  He  knew  of  Eabbinical  use  that  He 
might  be  able  to  cherish  a  hearty  liking  for  it,  just  as  He 
had  to  rid  Himself  of  current  ideas  of  the  Messianic  hope 
and  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  before  either  could  have  any 
reality  or  value  for  His  religious  consciousness.  As  things 
stood.  He  could  take  nothing  for  granted  in  the  whole 
range  of  morals  and  religion,  but  had  to  go  back  on  first 
principles,  and  with  regard  to  all  the  spiritual  treasures  of 
His  people  ask.  What  is  the  real  as  distinct  from  the  cur- 
rent worth  of  these  things  ?  And  when  He  entered  on  His 
public  ministry  He  appeared  as  one  who  had  formed  His 
own  estimates,  and  was  in  possession  of  transformed  con- 
ceptions alike  of  Bible,  kingdom,  and  Messiahship.  And 
with  regard  to  the  first.  His  verdict  was  in  effect :  The 
book  is  divine,  full  of  the  spirit  of  truth,  wisdom,  and  good- 
ness, supremely  useful  for  guidance  in  life,  setting  forth 
views  of  God  and  man  and  duty  to  which  one  can  with  a 
pare  conscience  say  Amen. 

Yet  while  infinitely  more  reverent  m  compared  with 


608  APOLOOETIOBL 

that  of  tlie  Rabbis,  Christ's  attitude  towards  the  Scripturea 
was  not,  like  theirs,  one  of  indiscriminate,  idolatrous  admira- 
tion. His  use  was  critical.  Some  books  He  quoted  often ; 
others  He  did  not  quote  at  all  He  had  a  graduated  sense 
of  the  relative  importance  of  the  matters  treated  of.  He 
distinguished  between  "  weightier  matters  "  in  the  law  *  and 
things  of  minor  consequence.  The  ethical  was  in  His 
esteem  of  far  more  importance  than  the  ritual;  it  was  fc»r 
Him  the  supreme  category.  To  it  as  a  test  He  brought 
every  custom  or  statute,  however  venerable ;  and  if  He 
found  any  wanting,  judged  by  the  royal  law  of  love.  He 
unhesitatingly  pronounced  them  imperfect  and  transient, 
though  they  might  have  a  place  in  the  Mosaic  code.  In 
all  this  He  differed  from  the  Rabbis.  For  them  all  Scrip- 
ture was  alike  important;  all  laws  great  or  small  alike 
binding  in  theory,  in  practice  the  small  more  than  the 
great.  Who  dared  presume  to  call  any  law  small,  defec- 
tive, or  temporary  that  God  had  commanded  ? 

In  all  this  we  must  follow  Christ  rather  than  the  Rabbis. 
Recognising  Him  as  an  authority  in  His  general  attitude  of 
reverence  for  the  Scriptures,  we  must  further  recognise 
Him  as  an  authority  in  His  discriminating  use  of  the 
Scriptures.  Nay,  in  the  very  fact  of  that  discriminating 
use  we  must  recognise  Christ  setting  Himself  as  an 
authority  above  the  Scriptures.  He  judges  them,  teaches 
the  right,  reasonable,  profitable  method  of  using  them,  as 
opposed  to  the  wrong.  Loyalty  to  Him  as  the  supreme 
authority  requires  that  we  should  accept  His  verdict,  and 
use  the  sacred  writings  in  His  spirit ;  and  above  all,  thai  we 
should  he  careful  not  so  to  use  them  that  He  shall  he  eclipsed 
and  His  own  teaching  made  void.  To  this  caveat,  in  general 
terms,  all  will  assent ;  the  practically  important  matter  is 
to  realise  the  possibility  of  making  the  grave  mistake,  and  to 
know  in  what  directions  danger  is  to  be  feared.  As  to  the 
possibility,  it  is  illustrated  by  the  case  of  the  Jews.  They 
Bearohed  the  Scriptures,  as  men  only  could  who  believed 

*  lC*tt.  xxiiL  23. 


THE   UOHT   OF   THE   WORLD.  609 

that  their  salvation  depended  on  the  quest ;  yet  tliey  missed 
Christ*  On  their  way  of  using  the  Scriptures  no  other 
result  was  possible.  How  could  worshippers  of  the  letter 
accept  as  their  Messiah  one  who  valued  only  the  spirit  ? 
what  could  men  to  whom  the  Bible  was  a  book  of 
law  do  but  reject  one  for  whom  it  was  a  book  of  inspira- 
tion ? 

A  tragic  error ;  can  it  happen  now  f  Is  it  possible  by  a 
wrong  use  of  the  Bible  to-day  to  miss  Christ ;  to  miss  Him, 
not  in  the  sense  of  forfeiting  all  share  in  His  salvation,  but 
in  the  sense  of  utterly  failing  to  do  justice  to  His  claims  as 
the  Supreme  Master  in  religion  ?  If  we  may  accept 
evidence  from  the  biography  of  modern  religious  doubt,  we 
must  conclude  that  it  is  possible  to  lose  Christ  in  the  Bible 
and  through  the  Bible.*  And  if  it  be  asked  how  that 
happens,  the  answer  suggested  both  by  experience  and  by 
theory  is :  It  comes  about  through  not  realising  that  the 
Gospels  are  the  core  of  the  Bible.  Here  at  last  is  the 
elect  Man  towards  whom  for  many  centuries  the  history  of 
elect  Israel  has  been  pointing.  Here  is  He  who  as  one 
having  the  standing  of  a  Son  speaks  God's  final  word  to 
men.  Surely  one  ought  to  give  supreme  attention  to  what 
He  says  by  word,  deed,  character,  and  experience  I  Yet 
there  are  men  who  are  constrained  to  confess  that  they 
have  not  done  so.  After  years  of  search  for  truth,  and 
with  a  good  general  knowledge  of  the  Bible,  they  turn  at 
last  to  the  Gospels  as  to  a  terra  incognita.  The  theoretical 
explanation  of  this  experience  offered  by  those  who  have 
duly  reflected  on  the  phenomenon  is  that  in  such  cases  the 
Bible  as  a  whole,  instead  of  Christ  in  particular,  has  been 
regarded  as  the  authority  in  religion.  The  point  is  of  such 
moment  that  it  may  be  well  to  quote  words  in  which  it  is 

» John  T.  89. 

•  Take  one  instanoe.  Harrison  {Probhms  of  Christianity  and  Seepticitm, 
p.  282),  giving  an  account  of  his  own  experience,  says  :  "How  I  found  my 
way  out  of  the  darkness  is  easily  told,  for  it  was  In  fact  the  only  way.  It 
was  by  fiiMling  Christ  Himself.  I  had  lost  Him  even  in  the  Bible.  At  laal 
I  tamed  to  the  foor  Gospels  ai^  stayed  there.  ^ 


610  APOLOGETICS. 

stated  with   all   needful  breadth  and   elearnesi.      Wendt 
writes: 

•*The  view  that  the  historical  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ 
was  the  perfect  revelation  of  God  for  men  has  been  always 
theoretically  recognised  in  the  Christian  Church,  and  has  had 
its  place  assigned  it  in  dogmatic  teaching  in  regard  to 
the  prophetic  office  of  Christ.  The  necessary  practical 
application  of  this  view,  however,  has  been  cramped  on  the 
part  of  Catholicism  by  the  theory  of  the  infallible  authority 
of  Church  teaching,  and  of  Protestantism  by  the  theory  of 
the  normative  authority  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  for  Christian 
doctrine.  When  the  Holy  Scriptures,  as  a  whole,  are  re- 
garded as  expressing  the  immediate  revelation  of  God,  the 
sajdngs  and  discourses  of  Jesus  are,  indeed,  viewed  as  part  of 
the  contents  of  Scripture ;  but  there  is  no  definite  reason  for 
emphasising  their  specific  pre-emiuence  over  the  other  con- 
tents of  Scripture.  Even  Paul  has  in  reality  had  a  much 
greater  influence  in  moulding  the  form  of  Christian  doctrine 
in  Protestantism  than  Jesus  Himself  ^ 

The  principle  that  some  parts  of  Scripture  are  of  more 
importance  than  others  is  not  one  which  any  party  will  be 
inclined  to  dispute.  On  the  contrary,  it  has  been  to  a 
wide  extent  expressly  recognised,*  and  still  more  extensively 
acted  on.  The  religious  spirit  has  asserted  the  right  to 
have  regard  to  its  own  edification  in  the  selection  and  use, of 
Scripture.  Its  preferences  have  been  on  the  whole  pretty 
uniform.  In  the  Old  Testament  it  has  done  honour  to  the 
Psalms,  the  Song  of  Songs  (spiritually  interpreted),  and 
Isaiah,  specially  the  second  part,  neglecting  Proverbs, 
Ecclesiastes,  and  the  other  prophets ;  in  the  New  it  has 
favoured  the  Fourth  Gospel,  the  leading  Epistles  of  Paul, 
especially  that  to  the  Eomans,  and  in  certain  circles  the 
Apocalypse,  and  left  the  three  first  Grospels  comparatively 

*  Tht  Teaching  ofJemui,  author'i  preface,  p.  2. 

'  The  Directory  for  the  Public  Worship  of  God,  prepared  by  the  "Weat- 
minster  Assembly,  commends  *'  the  more  frequent  reading  of  such  Scriptures 
•B  he  that  readeth  shall  think  beet  for  edification  of  his  hearem,  m  tlw  book 
ol  Fbalms  and  such  like." 


THE   UGHT   OF   THE  WORLD.  511 

in  the  background.*  It  i»  permissible,  while  conceding  to 
faith  the  right  of  preference,  to  suggest  respectful  doubt 
as  to  the  wisdom  with  which  it  has  been  exercised.  In 
particular,  it  may  be  confidently  asserted  that  the  neglect  of 
the  Synoptical  Gospels  is  a  serious  error,  and  a  suicidal  act 
of  self-impoverishment. 

It  is  an  obvious  corollary  from  the  position  stated  by 
Wendt,  that  the  teaching  of  Christ  must  guide  us  in 
estimating  the  religious  value  of  the  Old  Testament.  This 
view  having  been  already  enunciated,*  it  is  not  necessary 
here  to  enlarge  on  it ;  repetition,  however,  may  be  pardoned 
as  tending  to  give  it  due  and  needful  emphasis.  Let  it  be 
understood  then  that  it  is  not  only  our  right  but  our  duty 
to  carry  the  ideas  of  God,  man,  and  their  relations  taught 
by  Jesus,  back  to  the  Old  Testament,  and  to  regard  all 
herein  not  in  conformity  therewith  as  belonging  to  the 
defective  element  whose  existence  must  be  recognised  as  a 
matter  of  course  by  all  who  have  grasped  the  idea  of  a 
progressive  revelation.  If,  from  a  mistaken  feeling  of 
reverence,  we  fail  to  act  on  this  principle,  we  allow  the 
moonlight  to  eclipse  the  sunlight,  and  go  contrary  to  the 
rational  axiom  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  "  When  that  which  is 
perfect  is  come,  then  that  which  is  in  part  shall  be  done 
away."  '  Some  of  the  phenomena  coming  under  the  cate- 
gory of  defect  have  been  indicated  in  a  previous  chapter,* 
and  the  list  admits  of  being  extended.  • 

In  the  New  Testament  Christ  is  conceived  to  be  the  one 
Speaker.  "God,  who  spake  to  the  fathers  by  the  pro- 
phets, hath  at  the  end  of  these  days  spoken  unto  us  by 
a  Son."  •  All  other  speakers,  whether  by  voice  or  written 
page,  are  simply  witnesses  or  interpreters.  The  several 
books  of  the  New  Testament  have  been  admitted  into  the 

^  So  Eibach  in  hia  Gieasen  Addraas  (1888)  on  The  Scientific  Treatment  amd 
Practieai  Use  of  the  Holy  Scripture, 

•  Vide  p.  823.  »  1  Cor.  xiiL  10.  *  Book  II.  chap.  x. 

»  •  Vide  Clifford,  lite  Inspiration  and  ihe  Authority  </"<*«  BibU  (ehap.  r.\ 
•  imall  bat  suggestiT*  and  helpful  book. 

•H«b.i.L 


512  APOLOOETIC8. 

collection  becanse  they  were  believed  by  the  early  Chuich 

to  be  in  harmony  with  the  mind  of  Christ,  and  to  be  helpful 
to  the  understanding  of  His  gospel.  Formally  the  prin- 
ciple by  which  canonicity  was  determined  was  apostolic 
authorship  direct  or  indirect,  it  being  assumed  that  all 
apostles,  and  all  intimately  associated  with  them,  were  in 
possession  of  an  inspiration  and  spiritual  intelligence  which 
would  guard  them  against  misconception  of  whatever  per- 
tained to  the  Christian  faith.  In  reality,  however,  the 
judgment  of  the  Church  was  based  on  the  conviction  gained 
by  devout  perusal  that  the  various  books  included  in  the 
canon  were  consistent  with  each  other,  and  all  together  in 
harmony  with  the  doctrine  and  spirit  of  the  Master.  And, 
speaking  comprehensively,  it  may  be  affirmed  that  the 
judgment  of  the  Church  was  right,  though  the  reasons  given 
in  particular  instances  might  be  wrong,  or  at  least  pre- 
carious. Thus  no  one  possessing  due  insight  doubts  the 
right  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  to  a  place  in  the 
authoritative  literature  of  the  Christian  religion.  But  few 
now  set  value  on  the  reason  which  induced  the  ancient 
Church,  after  long  hesitation,  to  recognise  the  canonicity  of 
the  Epistle,  viz.  that  it  had  the  Apostle  Paul  for  its  author. 
The  settlement  of  the  canon  of  the  New  Testament  was 
a  weighty  problem,  demanding  for  its  wise  solution  due 
acquaintance  with  historical  traditions,  and,  still  more, 
spiritual  discernment  and  sober,  unbiassed  judgment 
Without  cherishing  superstitious  ideas  of  Church  authority, 
we  may  rationally  pay  great  deference  to  the  final  verdict 
of  Fathers  and  Councils.  Still  such  deference  does  not 
foreclose  inquiry.  Every  Christian  has  a  right  to  examine 
into  the  matter  for  himself,  and  to  hold  himself  in  suspense 
in  regard  to  the  canonicity  of  particular  books,  as  tested  by 
the  principle  of  essential  agreement  with  the  mind  of  Christ 
in  moral  and  religious  teaching.  It  were  better  for  a  time 
to  doubt  the  canonicity  of  a  book,  even  under  a  misunder- 
standing, than  to  allow  its  supposed  teaching  to  obscure  tke 
light  of  great  leading  Christian  truths.     Lnthei  was  not  a 


THE   LIGHT  OF   THE    WORLD.  613 

heretic  because,  in  his  jealousy  for  the  doctrine  of  justifica- 
tion by  faith,  he  pronounced  the  Epistle  of  James  a  strawy 
Epistle.  He  was  simply  a  man  who  had  made  a  mistake 
in  exegesis  biassed  by  a  one-sided,  narrow  conception  of  the 
doctrine  which  he  championed. 

The  question  of  the  New  Testament  canon,  while  inter- 
esting and  important,  is  not  vital  to  faith.  Faith  could 
live  and  even  thrive  with  a  very  reduced  New  Testament : 
the  Synoptical  Gospels  and  Paul's  four  all  but  universally 
recognised  Epistles  might  suffice  to  start  with.  Hence  it  ia 
not  necessary  in  general  apologetic,  which  concerns  itself 
only  about  what  is  urgent,  to  deal  at  length  with  the  sub- 
ject of  the  canon,  going  into  the  history  of  its  formation 
and  the  claims  of  particular  books  to  a  place  therein.  For 
all  that  relates  to  such  matters  the  student  must  be  referred 
to  books  specially  treating  of  them.^  The  Gospels  have 
received  exceptional  attention  for  obvious  reasons.  They 
are  the  main  source  of  our  knowledge  concerning  Christ 
and  the  Christian  religion,  Eind  it  is  of  urgent  importance 
to  assist  the  inquirer  to  arrive  at  a  satisfactory  conviction 
as  to  their  substantial  historicity,  their  fidelity  to  the  spirit 
of  Christ,  and  their  essential  harmony.  If  Jesus  be  the 
ultimate  authority  for  the  Christian,  it  is  most  needful  to 
know  with  all  the  exactness  and  fulness  possible  what  He 
was  and  what  He  taught  as  shown  in  the  professed  recorda 
of  His  life  in  this  world. 

The  sphere  of  Christ's  authority  is  religion  and  morals, 
not  science,  whether  sacred  or  secular.  In  defining  His 
mission  He  said  that  He  came  not  to  destroy  the  law  and 
the  prophets.  It  may  also  be  said  that  Qe  came  not  to 
tell  us  who  wrote  the  law  or  the  prophecies,  or  when  or  in 
what  order  the  various  books  of  the  Hebrew  Bible  were 
written.  In  this  view  the  Christian  intelligence  of  our 
time  acquiesces  with  increasing  unanimity.     Let  it  suffice 

*  Vide  Westoott  on  The  Canon  of  the  New  Tettament ;  Charteris,  Oamom. 
ieUff  ;  Bean,  History  of  the  Canon  of  Holy  Seripttirt,  Wat  tiie  GUI  Tmt^ 
neat  eonaalt  wpocially  tlie  work  of  Professor  Byl*. 

2k 


614  APOLOOETIOS. 

to  state  it  without  going  into  qnestions  concerning  the 
limits  of  Christ's  knowledge. 

In  the  foregoing  pages  the  authority  of  Christ  has  been 
exalted  above  that  of  all  other  claimants.  But  it  has  not 
been  set  in  antagonism  to  any  legitimate  authority.  Christ's 
attitude  is  not  one  of  zealous  antagonism  but  of  grand 
comprehension.  His  teaching  sums  up  and  crowns  the 
best  thought  of  the  wise  in  all  ages  and  lands.  It  is 
throughout  in  affinity  with  reason.  The  just,  wholesome 
authority  of  the  Church  depends  on  the  measure  in  which 
Christ's  spirit  dwells  in  her.  "  The  testimony  of  Jesus  is 
the  spirit  of  prophecy."  Therefore  Christianity  is  the 
absolute  religion.  It  is  indeed  God's  final  word  to  menu 
On  the  simple  principle  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  ifc  if 
iMtined  to  perpetuity  and  to  ultimate  universality. 


GENERAL   INDEX. 


Abbott,  Dr.  Kdwin,  oa  th«  virgin 

birth  of  JesTU,  409. 

Abraham,  his  call,  198. 

Acts  (The)  of  Apostle*,  P«ter  and 
John  before  the  Sanhedrim,  416  ; 
Paul's  conversion,  420 ;  critical 
Tiews  on,  445. 

Agnosticism,  aceonnt  of,  146 ;  Her- 
Dert  Spencer  on,  147  ;  hostile  to 
Csith,  148  ;  can  be  agnostic  if  we 
please,  162 ;  reli^ous  atrophy, 
162 ;  agnostic  religions,  168. 

Amos,  the  prophet,  178  ;  disputed 
texts  in  his  book,  179  ;  Ood  a  just 
mler  orer  all,  180  ;  on  prophetic 
inspiration,  191 ;  idea  of  election, 
198 ;  prominence  of  ethical  ele- 
ment ui,  234 1  his  ideal  political, 
S62. 

Anthropology,  criminal,  recentitadics 
in,  102. 

Apologetie,  ftinction  and  method  of^ 
22 ;  distinct  from  apology,  88 ; 
definitions  of,  86  ;  aim  of,  87  ; 
method,  89  ff. 

Apologists,  older,  on  prophecy,  S84, 
242  ;  on  miracles,  876. 

Apology,  of  Christ  for  loying  sin- 
ners, 6  ;  principles  underlying,  6 ; 
distinct  from  apologetic,  88. 

Apostles,  the,  choice  of,  proof  of 
Christ's  wisdom,  379  ;  doubted  by 
Havet,  879. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  on  Spinoza,  81 ; 
on  fulfilment  of  Messianic  prophecy 
in  Jesus,  869. 

Authority  in  religion,  often  mis- 
placed, 493 ;  Christ  the  supreme 
authority,  493  ff.  ;  Christ  and 
other  masters,  494 ff.;  reason, 
497  ;  Church,  608  ;  Scripture, 
506  ;  sphere  of  Christ's  authority. 


•u 


Baiv,  matter,  a  donble-fsead  tntity, 
98. 

Baldensperger,  on  Messianio  oob- 
sciousness  of  Jesus,  866. 

Barrow  (author  of  JBvangtltmm 
Begni),  Christ's  grace  in  Fourth 
Gospel  confined  to  the  disciples,  488. 

Baur,  Dr.  F.  C,  Christ's  indebted- 
ness to  Greek  philosophy,  166 ; 
Jesus  claimed  to  be  Christ,  860 ; 
sources  of  Christianity,  862  ;  ori^rin 
of  Christianity,  414,  416  ;  Paul's 
oonyersion,  417  ;  primitive  Chris- 
tianity, 431 ;  views  of,  compared 
with  Pfleiderer's,  434  ;  on  Synopti- 
cal Gospels,  461  ;  non-historicity  of 
Fourth  Gospel,  474. 

Bax,  the  religion  of  Socialism,  118 ; 
the  ethics  of,  114. 

Baxter,  Richard,  on  fundamentals, 
801. 

Bible,  the  txMtm  ^ltr«  of,  82 ;  the 
record  of  revelation,  300  ;  in  what 
sense  a  rule  of  faith,  826 ;  false 
ideas  of  its  authority,  498  ;  true 
conception,  506  ff. ;  danger  of 
wrong  use  of,  609 ;  books  of,  not 
all  of  eaual  value,  610 ;  Christ's 
own  teacning  determines  value  of 
both  Testaments,  611. 

Bomemann,  on  right  to  express  our 
idea  of  Christ's  person  in  our  own 
language,  357 ;  on  Christ's  pre- 
existence,  407  ;  religion  not  con- 
cerned to  explain  Christ's  person 
and  work,  409. 

Buddhism,  compared  with  Hebrew 
prophecy,  239 ;  Oldenberg  on, 
269  ;  Buddha  and  Jesus,  878. 

Butler,  Bishop,  arguments  for  future 
life  in  Analogy,  60  ;  sombre  tone 
of  Analogy,  125  ;  record  of  revela- 
tion, how  fkr  necessary,  296. 


616 


QENERAL  INDEX. 


Caibd,  Princfpal,  on  principle  of 
causality,  150  ;  proof  of  God's  ex- 
istence, 156. 

Caird,  Prof.  Edward,  contrast  between 
materialism  and  spiritnalism,  110 ; 
on  religion  of  Comte,  163. 

Otmon,  required  in  literature  of  rere- 
Istion,  311 ;  Reuss  on,  811 ;  the 
(acts,   811  ;    reflections,   318 ;  or- 

Eiiic  conception  of  Scriptnr©,  SI  4  ; 
story  of  Hebrew  canon,  8i6  ;  Dr. 
Hodge  on,  815  ;  Oehler  on,  817 ; 
Byle  on,  812,  815,  819;  test  of 
canonicitT,  819 ;  canon  of  New 
Testament,  512  ;  qaestion  in?port- 
ant,  but  not  vital  to  faith,  618. 

Oelsus,  attack  o^  on  Christianity, 
9-16. 

Cheyne,  Canon,  on  Mosaism,  223 ; 
on  Isa.  zxxii  2,  258  ;  on  Persian 
influence  on  Jewish  religion,  287  ; 
on  Essenes,  292  ;  on  legal  spirit  in 
Psalter,  336. 

Chinese,  the,  not  an  elect  peopla, 
200  ;  Book  of  Odes,  243. 

Ohristianity,  independent  of  history, 
860 ;  forms  of,  851  ;  Paul  not 
•nthor  of,  416 ;  Paul's  idea  of, 
421 ;  recent  theories  as  to  primi- 
tive Christianity,  480 ;  Paul 
•nthor  of,  according  to  Pfleiderer, 
485  ;  the  absolute  religion,  614. 

Chronicles,  books  of,  date  of,  279  ; 
characteristics,  281 ;  Philo-Leviti- 
calism,  824,  881. 

dement  of  Alexandria,  John's  Gospel 
the  spiritual  Gospel,  489. 

Clifford,  Professor,  "  mind-stuff,"  98. 

Clifford,  Dr.,  on  the  inspiration  and 
authority  of  the  Bible,  611. 

Cohbe,  Miss,  difference  between 
Deism  and  Theism,  182 ;  on  prayer, 
189,  144 ;  on  personality  of  God, 
144 )  on  tiie  new  revelatum,  146. 

Confucius,  called  himself  a  trans- 
mitter, 268. 

Covenant,  of  works,  249 ;  new  eors- 
nant,  247-249. 

Option,  of  the  world,  66  ;  is  matter 
eternal  t  65  ;  Pantheistie  idea  otf 
78  ;  criticism  of,  85-87. 

Criticism,  modem,  of  Old  Testament^ 
164-175;  apologetic  attitude  to- 
wards, 171  ;  variations  of,  171 ; 
extreme  views,  172  ;  New  Testa- 
Bent  verdicts  on  LevitkaUsm  not 
•Iterod  by,  27& 


Dalb,  Dr.,  on  the  living  Christ  and 
the  Gospels,  858. 

Daniel,  book  of,  belongs  to  Macoa 
bsean  period,  291 ;  of  Apocalyptic 
ty|)e,  291 ;  traces  of  national  self- 
consciousness  in,  334. 

Darmesteter,  on  Ha  vet's  oritioal 
views,  172,  197 ;  on  Jeremiah, 
254 ;  on  Persian  dualism,  284. 

Darwin  on  morals,  112 ;  confession 
of  religious  atrophy,  162. 

David  becomes  an  ideal  of  kinghood 
252. 

Death  of  Jesus,  foreseen  by  Htm,  380; 
meaning  of,  881. 

Decalogue,  dates  from  Moses,  209  ; 
proof,  209  ff.;  universal  character, 
213  ;  preface,  import  of,  212  ;  ori- 
pjxeil  form  of,  216 ;  no  ritual  in 
it,  217  ;  compared  with  Egyptian 
ritual  of  the  dead,  217. 

Deism,  sketch  of,  16 ;  Deistio  theory 
of  ihe  universe,  115;  optimistic, 
117 ;  Pelagian  Idea  of  human 
nature,  119 ;  view  of  future  life, 
120 ;  use  of  design  argument,  124. 

Delitzsch,  definition  of  apologetic, 
85 ;  apologetic  method,  41 ;  on 
Deism  and  Theism,  185. 

Driver,  Canon,  on  the  documents  of 
Pentateuch,  166  ;  on  the  Deca- 
logue, 218  ;  on  Esther,  835. 

Duhm,  idea  of  election  in  prophets, 
192;  Hosea  first  to  condemn  image- 
worship,  230  ;  contrast  between 
Amos  and  Hosea,  284 1  on  Esekiel, 
264. 

EooLssiATES,  book  of,  idea  of  Qod 
in,  287  ;  belongs  to  night  of  legal- 
ism, 291 ;  use  of,  in  canon,  828  ; 
pessimistic,  828. 

Egypt,  Israel  in,  196,  212 ;  ritual  of 
the  dead,  217 ;  religions  war  be- 
tween, and  Israel,  226. 

Eibach,  on  the  preference  for  parti- 
cular books  of  Scripture,  511. 

Election  of  Israel,  192  S.  ;  elect  for 
world's  sake,  200 ;  creates  an  apolo- 

Eetio  problem,  201 ;  bearing  on 
eathenism,  204;  modem  apolo- 
gists on,  202. 
Elijah,  his  task,  227  ;  Idea  of  God, 
228  ;  did  he  countenance  worship 
of  Jehovah  by  images  t  229. 
Esther,  book  of,  belongs  to  night  of 
legalism,  291 }  od  ue  borous  aC 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


817 


Ibm  mnoolnl,  191 ;  wu  it  In 
canon  of  Josepnns  T  819. 

Eusebiua,  statements  of  Papiaa  con- 
cerning the  Gospels  by  Matthew 
and  Mark,  preserved  by,  448 ; 
Clement's  statement  about  John's 
Oospel,  489. 

Ewald,  H.,  on  heathenism,  206; 
original  form  of  Decalogue,  216  ; 
religiooa  war  between  Israel  and 
Eg^t,  225 ;  on  laa.  iz.  6,  259 ; 
date  of  Chronicles,  279 ;  ita  pur- 
pose, 279. 

Kwald,  Paul,  the  main  problem  in 
the  question  about  the  Gospels, 
468. 

Exile,  Babylonian,  26& ;  literary  ac- 
tirity  of  exiles,  265, 

Efekiel,  the  prophet,  priests  and 
Levites  in,  169 ;  his  ideal,  254 ; 
link  between  Prophetism  and  Juda- 
ism, 264  ;  last  eight  chapters,  264. 

Ezra,  the  scribe,  268  ;  his  work,  268. 

Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  books  of,  origin- 
ally one  with  Chronicles,  279. 

Faibbairn,  Principal  (Oxford),  "  de- 
Telopmental  coincidences,"  285  ; 
on  Kenan's  theory  of  resurrection 
of  Jesus,  888. 

Fall,  the,  biblical  account  of,  com- 
pared with  scientific  view  of  primi- 
tive man,  62. 

Farrar,  Archdeacon,  on  Eabbinical 
system  of  interpretation,  296. 

Fichte,  denied  personality  of  God, 
81. 

Fiske,  John,  prolonged  infancy  as  a 
civilising  agent,  104 ;  God  un- 
knowable, 148;  evolutionary 
theory  exalts  man,  159. 

Flint,  on  the  cosmologioal  argument, 
150 ;  the  teleological  argument, 
154,  160. 

Genesis,  critical  views  on,  166. 

Gloag,  Dr. ,  character  of  Fourth  Gos- 
pel as  compared  with  Synoptists, 
490. 

Gore,  C,  on  the  need  to  go  back  to 
the  historic  Jesus,  850;  use  of 
oratio  directa  influences  the  re- 
ports of  Christ's  teaching  in  Fourth 
Gospel,  476  ;  nature  of  all  legiti- 
mate authority,  500. 

Gospels,  Synoptical,  sources  for  Chris- 
tian  facts,    46;  primd  fcuie  his- 


torical, 848;  oompared  with  VwaSfn 
Epistles,  844;  miracles  in,  876: 
historicity  examined,  448  ff.  ;  did 
tliey  use  the  ideal  method  t  459. 

Gospel  of  John,  different  from  Synop- 
tical Gospels,  848 ;  the  hardest 
apologetic  problem,  466 ;  the  main 
question,  467 ;  the  Logos  doctrine 
no  part  of  Christ's  teaching,  469  ; 
external  evidence  cannot  settle  the 
question,  471 ;  is  the  ideal  method 
resorted  tot  474  ;  free  reporting  of 
sayings,  476  ;  how  to  be  accounted 
for,  476  ;  the  Holy  Spirit  Christ's 
aiter  ego,  what  this  involves, 
481  ;  the  fulness  of  Christ's  grace 
asserted  but  not  shown,  482 ;  lead- 
ing aim  of,  to  show  divine  majesty 
of  the  Logos,  484  ;  dilTerent  from 
Synoptists  in  didactic  scope,  487  ; 
the  second  lesson  -  book  of  evan- 
gelic knowledge,  488 ;  Logos  theorem 
not  key  to  the  gospel,  490 ;  Johan- 
nine  authorship  credible,  491. 

Greece,  gods  of,  at  different  periods, 
230 ;  tragic  poets  compared  with 
Hebrew  propnets,  243,  245. 

Green,  Professor  'T.  H.,  import  ol 
Hegelianism,  78 ;  the  universal 
consciousness,  156 ;  philosophical 
Christianity,  858 ;  on  Chnstian 
dogma,  856;  on  aversion  to  dogma, 
899. 

Greg,  W.  R.,  divine  personality, 
143  ;  Providence,  144 ;  the  fature 
life,  144 ;  utility  of  prayer,  144 ; 
on  the  function  of  revelation,  501. 

Habakkxjk  the  prophet,  perplexitiet 

of,  241. 

Halcombe,  John's  Gospel  fint 
written,  488. 

Hamack,  "sovereign  handling"  of 
history  ascribed  to  author  of  Fourth 
Gospel,  473 ;  Logos  idea  of  Fourth 
Gospel  not  of  the  Alexandrian 
type,  491. 

Harrison  {Problems  of  Christianity 
and  Scepticism),  on  temper  of 
apologist,  89 ;  lost  Clffist  in  the 
Bible,  509. 

Hartmann,  concrete  and  abstract 
monism  distinguished,  87  ;  eulo^ 
of  Bernard  Weiss'  account  of  primi- 
tive Christianity,  437. 

Havet,  Ernest,  views  on  Old  Testa- 
ment criticism,   172  ;  lato  date  of 


518 


GENERAL   INDEX. 


the  prophets,  172 ;  Darmesteter  on, 
172  ;  denies  the  call  of  the  twelre, 
379. 

Heathenism,  character  of,  206 ; 
Ewald  on,  206 ;  contrasted  with 
religion  of  Israel,  237  ;  compared 
with  Judaism,  265. 

Hebrews,  Epistle  to,  an  apologetic 
writing,  2  ;  views  of  cntics  on, 
448  ;  relation  to  Paul,  444  ;  pro- 
logue, 470  ;  writer  not  an  apostle, 
470 ;  canonicity  independent  of 
authorship,  512. 

Hegel,  views  of,  compared  with 
Spinoza's,  78 ;  on  the  teleological 
argument,  161. 

Hellenism,  Greek  influence  on  Israel, 
289,  392  ;  the  Septuagint,  293 ; 
Hellenistic  elements  in  Paul's 
Epistles,  436. 

Helvetius,  argued  in  favour  of  liber- 
tinage,  101. 

Herrmann,  Professor,  representative 
•f  Ritschl  school,  155 ;  God  known 
only  through  Jesus,  155,  502 ; 
knowledge  of  the  historical  Christ 
indispensable,  866  ;  faith  in  divin- 
ity of  Jesos,  how  reached,  405. 

Holtzmann,  H.  J.,  advocates  an 
Urmarlnu,  449. 

Holtzmann,  Oscar,  criticism  of  teach- 
ing of  Fourth  Gospel,  483  ;  Logos 
idea  in  Fourth  Gospel  only  a  H^S' 
voratellung,  491. 

Hosea,  the  prophet,  on  idols,  177 ; 
Israel  an  elect  people,  198 ;  reli- 
gious element  most  prominent  in, 
234 ;  God's  ^ace  in,  251. 

Hume,  on  suicide,  101. 

Huxley,  on  origin  of  life,  05 ;  men 
automata,  99 ;  on  the  Gospels,  842. 

Illuxinism,  or  fre*  thought  in  Ger- 
many, 22  ff. 

Immanence,  Deism  and  Theism  in 
relation  to,  184  ;  Delitzsch  on,  136; 
Theodore  Parker  on,  187 ;  Mar- 
tineau,  141. 

Inspiration,  prophetic,  190 ;  how 
affected  by  criticism,  809 ;  com- 
patible with  orude  morality,  809 ; 
d  priori  views  of,  810. 

Isaiah,  the  prophet,  on  idols,  177  { 
the  Holv  One  of  Israel,  183 ;  Zion 
inviolable,  185 ;  mountain  of  the 
Locd's  hoose,  188 ;  Universalisnif 
189;  idoa  of  election,   193;  two 


Isaiahs,  248;  ideal  king,  SBt; 
politicjJ  optimism,  253 ;  chiet 
source  of  Christ's  Messianic  idea^ 
363. 
Israel,  stages  in  her  religion,  170  i 
her  vocation,  192  ;  an  elect  people, 
192  ff.  ;  prophetic  references  to 
earlv  history  of,  196 ;  chosen  for 
good  of  the  world,  200 ;  geograph- 
ical position,  200. 

Jacobi,  science  and  the  belief  in  God, 
91. 

Jeremiah,  the  prophet,  on  idols,  177  ; 
God  universal  Ruler,  178 ;  God  ths 
Creator,  180  ;  Zion  not  inviolable, 
187  ;  perplexities  of,  241 ;  oracle 
of  new  covenant,  247  ;  ethical  op- 
timism of,  253. 

Jesus,  apology  of,  for  loving  sinners, 
6  ff. ;  His  teaching,  49-63  ;  con- 
flict with  Pharisaism,  66 ;  view  of 
sin,  67 ;  welcome  for  His  own 
sake,  337 ;  way  of  dealing  with 
inquirers,  339  ;  can  He  be  uiown  t 
342  ;  new  type  of  goodness,  346 ; 
the  Christ,  866  ;  sources  of  His 
Messianic  idea,  863 ;  Martineaa's 
objection  answered,  364 ;  foundar 
of  the  kingdom,  869 ;  methods, 
874  ;  miracles,  374  ;  wiulom,  879  ; 
meaning  of  His  death,  881  ;  resur- 
rection, 383  ;  Lord,  398  ;  soorces 
of  faith  in  His  Lordship,  400 ;  Jesus 
and  Paul,  438 ;  supreme  authority 
in  religion,  492  ff. ;  His  yoke  easy, 
500 ;  sphere  of  His  authority, 
513. 

Job,  book  of,  date,  241 ;  canonicity, 
320  ;  raison  d'itre,  328. 

Jonah,  book  of,  canonicity  of,  821. 

Jones,  Professor  Henry,  Materialiam 
and  Idealism,  110 ;  ideal  without 
the  power  within,  249. 

Josephus,  his  Hebrew  canon,  818. 

Judaism,  compared  with  Mosaism, 
261 ;  prominence  of  ritual  in,  262  ; 
a  step  onwards  f  264  ;  differenca  be- 
tween and  heathenism,  S66. 

Kaftan,  on  telaological  argomeat, 

155. 
Eant,  on  human  depravity,  1S8  ;  <n 

principle   d  oansality,    150 ;   oa 

teleological  argoment,  151 ;  on  on* 

tologioal  argomeat,  158. 
Keim,  on  goqial  miraoU^  t76:  «■ 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


resomotloB  of  Jestii,  999 ;  criti- 
cism of  riaion  theory,  390  ;  "tele- 
gram "  theory,  391. 

Kethubim,  third  division  of  Hebrew 
canon,  170,  815  ;  region  of  Old 
Testament  antilegomena,  316. 

Kingdom  of  God,  Christ's  idea  of, 
8;  attributet  of,  870-373;  Jesus 
fonnder  of,  369. 

Saenen,  Moses  anthor  of  Decalogne, 
170  ;  apocalyptic  literature,  293. 

Lanok,  historian  of  Materialism,  98  ; 
on  mental  phenomena,  99  ;  basis 
of  morals,  103  ;  worship  of  ideals, 
105,  114 ;  atoms  without  quali- 
ties, 109. 

Laws  in  Pentateuch,  strata  of  legisla- 
tion, 167. 

Le  Conte,  Professor,  erolution  and 
Theism,  92  ;  of  mind  out  of  matter, 
108  ;  on  immortality  of  man,  159  ; 
eyolution  and  the  ideal  man,  412. 

Legaliun,  night  of  legalism,  278  ff. 

Lessing,  writings  and  opinion!  of, 
22. 

life,  origin  of.  Christian  riew,  67, 

107  ;  Materialistic  riew,  94  ;  Du 
Boi«  Beymond  and  Huxley  on, 
95. 

Liffhtfoot,  Bishop,  on  aathorship  of 

Fourth  Gospel,  472. 
Upsiua,    personality    of    God,    82 ; 

Theistic  arguments,  158. 
Lotze,  defence  of  personality  of  God, 

88  ;  criticism  of  Materialism,  106- 

108  ;  teleoloeical  argument,  168 ; 
possibility  of  miracle,  411. 

Lue,  Gospel  of,  preface  reveals  pur- 
poM  to  write  history,  466 ;  "Hymn 
of  Victory,"  464  ;  story  of  woman 
In  Simon  •  house,  464. 

Maoojlxmcb,  Jndaa,  290. 

Maccabees,  second  book  of,  on  Nehe- 
miah's  oolleotion  of  books,  281. 

Mark,  Gospel  of|  Papiaa  on,  448 ; 
views  of  critics  on,  449. 

Marshall,  Professor,  on  varlatioBi  in 
evangelic  reports,  469. 

Martinean,  on  Materialism,  110  ;  im- 
manence, 141  ;  the  inner  light, 
146  ;  dedgn  argument,  164  ;  reli- 
gion of  homanity,  168  ;  on  gospel 
nistory,  148 ;  Jesus  not  Chrut, 
164 ;  Now  Testament  interpreta- 
tioa  of  prophecy,  869;  did  not 


teach  Universalism,  871  ;  view  of 
resurrection,  394  ;  Jesus  not  per- 
fect, 410 ;  reason  the  seat  of  autho- 
rity in  religion,  498,  602. 

Matheson,  Dr.  G.,  is  matter  eternal  t 
66. 

Matthew,  Gospel  of,  Papias  on,  448  ; 
modern  critics  on,  449 ;  the  gra- 
cious invitation,  468 ;  the  g^reat 
commission,  462. 

M^negoz,  Paul's  view  of  resurrection 
of  .Jesus,  896  ;  Paul  not  occupied 
with  question  of  Christ's  birth,  408. 

Micah,  the  prophet,  on  idols,  177  ; 
God  universal  Lord,  178  ;  moun- 
tain of  Lord's  house,  188  ;  Israel  an 
elect  people,  198 ;  on  God's  grace, 
260. 

Mill,  J.  S.,  essay  on  Nature,  126  | 
pessimism,  126 ;  argument  from 
design,  161. 

Miraclea  in  Gospels,  48,  874  ;  apolo- 
getic value  of,  876 ;  nature  mlrsoles, 

877  ;    permanent    significance  of, 

878  ;  {KNssibility  of,  411 ;  ln^l^an^Af 
in  Fourth  Gospel,  484. 

Moore,  A.  L.,  faith  to  be  defended 
on  presuppositions,  69  ;  Darwin'a 
eonfession  of  reUgious  atrophy,  162. 

Morality,  crude,  mstingniahed  from 
immorality,  809. 

Mosaism,  relation  to  Judaism,  262. 

Moses,  author  of  Decalogue,  209; 
relation  to  ritual,  218  ;  a  prophet, 
219  ;  absence  of  reference  to  f^tort 
life,  224  ;  put  morality  first,  2S7. 

Kkhkmiah,  prayers  of,  262. 
Nehemiah,  book  of,  vuU  Ezra. 

Oftimibk,  Christian,  70 ;  Deiatk^ 
117  ;  prophetic,  246 ff.;  aource  of 
prophetic,  247 ;  formi  of,  261 ; 
value  of,  266. 

Origen,  reply  to  Celsna,  9-lt. 

Owen,  Dr.,  on  fundamentals,  Ml. 

Palinoekbsis,  Christian  hope  o^ 
67  ;  scope  of  Christian  hope,  68. 

Pantheism,  relation  to  Polytheim, 
16. 

Papias,  notices  of  Matthew  and  Mark, 
448. 

Parker,  Theodore,  differenoo  between 
Deism  and  Theism,  188  ;  attituda 
towards  Pantheism,  186 ;  provi- 
dence, 14t;  the  fntoie  life,  144 


520 


QENBRAL  INDEX. 


PaoI,  Hm  Apostile,  Jem*  Lord,  402  ; 
rwarreotion  of  Jesus,  402  ;  Grod- 
head  of  Jesus,  406  ;  pre-existence, 
407 ;  ainlessness,  407 ;  Tirgin  birth  f 
408  ;  conyenion,  421  ;  Christ's 
atoning  death,  424 ;  bis  litoits, 
426  ;  Rabbinical  modes  of  thought, 
426  ;  views  of  modem  critics,  431 ; 
mystic  side  of  his  theology,  442. 

PaoUnism,  Deatero-,  name  given  to 
certain  books  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, 444,  451. 

Pentateach,  the,  modem  criticism 
on,  167. 

Persia,  ancient,  rell^on  ot,  248 ; 
degenerated  into  ntnalism,  265  ; 
idea  of  God,  283 ;  involuntary 
dualism,  283 ;  did  Jews  borrow 
from  T  S86 ;  views  of  Cheyne,  287. 

Personality  of  Ood,  essential  to  Chris> 
tian  theory  of  the  oniyerse,  59,  81 ; 
Pantheism  denies,  80 ;  Lotse  on, 
83. 

Pfleiderer,  resorreotion  of  Jesna,  404 ; 
Paul  real  author  of  Christianity, 
416;  source  of  Paul's  theology, 
426  ;  primitive  Christianity,  434  ; 
his  view  compared  with  Baor's,  435 ; 
Universalism  in  Christ's  teaching, 
488  ;  on  Synoptical  Gospels,  447  ; 
compared  with  Baur's  views,  451 ; 
*'  Hymn  of  Victory,"  454  ;  gra- 
cious invitation,  458. 

Pharisees,  origin  of,  288. 

PhUo,  in  thought,  Jew  in  form,  Greek 
in  spirit,  295 ;  afSnity  with  Scribes, 
296 ;  allegorical  interpretation,  295. 

Prophecy,  Messianic,  245  S. ;  what  in 
smotness,  256  ;  Messianic  ideals, 
260  ;  met  in  Jesus,  261  ;  Messianio 
hope  in  period  of  the  Scribes,  293. 

Prophetism,  relation  to  Mosaism, 
231 ;  passion  for  righteousness, 
S38  ;  relation  to  ritual,  234  ;  apolo- 
getic value  of,  242  ;  similar  pheno- 
mena in  other  nations,  242 ; 
optimism  of,  245  S. 

Prophets,  Hebrew,  monotheists,  176, 
182 ;  Individualism,  187 ;  Uni- 
versalism, 188  ;  origin  of  prophetic 
religion,  190 ;  view  of  Israel's 
vocation,  192  ;  reference  to  early 
history  of  Israel  in,  195  ;  reafiirm 
ancient  faith,  231. 

Protestantism,  neglect  of  Synoptical 
Gospels  by,  845,  510 ;  preference 
for  Paul  (Renan),  429. 


Pludter,  date  of,  170,  208,  f41 1  wait 
ing  on  God,  240  ;  problems  of  indi- 
vidual life,  241  ;  value  of,  if  late  in 
origin,  272 ;  dark  side,  274 ;  Cheyns 
on,  287 ;  religious  defects  of^  884. 

Rbiicabus,  Welfenhtlttel  Fragments, 
S5 ;  on  the  future  Ufe,  121,  181 ; 
resurrection  of  Jesus,  885. 

Religion  of  Israel,  sources  for,  165 ; 
modem  views  on,  167 ;  three  stages, 
170 ;  defects,  321. 

Renan,  on  Decalogue,  217 ;  denies 
Persian  influence  on  Jews,  288 ; 
theory  as  to  resurrection  of  Jesus, 
887  ;  Paul's  conversion,  417 ;  d*- 
preeiates  Paul,  429. 

Resurrection  of  Jesus,  theories  to 
explain  away,  385  S. ;  helped  to 
make  Jesus  Lord,  402;  Pfleiderer 
on,  404. 

Reuss,  on  canon,  811 ;  origin  of  Fourth 
Gospel,  467  ;  character  of  its  narra- 
tives, 478  ;  order  in  which  Gospels 
must  be  studied,  488,  490. 

Revelation,  Deistic  views  of,  17 : 
Lessing's,  22  ;  Spinoza's  views  on, 
82  ;  valuable  as  a  protest  against 
a  scholastic  conception  of,  82  ;  trae 
conception  of,  32,  501 ;  not  synon- 
ymous with  the  Bible,  298 ;  God 
reveals  Himself  in  history,  298 ; 
idea  of,  in  scholastic  Protestantism, 
800. 

Reymond,  Du  Bois,  origin  of  life  only 
a  difficult  meohanicu  problem,  95. 

Riehm,  views  as  to  the  law,  171 ; 
Sabbath  law,  221 ;  ritual  oodes, 
221  ;  Alexandrian  Judaism  and 
prophecy,  280  ;  night  of  legalism, 
297 ;  Messianic  prophecy,  328. 

Ritschlianism,  characteristics,  156 ; 
averse  to  dogma,  399. 

Robertson,  Professor,  on  texts  in 
Amos,  179 ;  on  Mosaic  idea  of 
God,  222  ;  on  origin  of  ritual  laws, 
222 ;  on  Elijah,  229 ;  on  indirect 
speech  in  Hebrew  language,  476. 

Rousseau,  Emile,  27  ;  on  prayer,  28, 
118,  139  ;  attitude  towards  Christ, 
29  ;  on  moral  evil,  125. 

Royce,  doubt  proves  a  God,  158. 

Ruth,  book  of,  canonicity  of,  321. 

Ryle,  Professor,  literary  activity  of 
the  exiles,  265 ;  on  the  Hebrew 
canon,  812,  316  ;  on  oanon  of 
JoaephuB,  819. 


OENEEAL  INDEX. 


521 


1KB,  OB  PAoTt  mrllar  mode  of 
thought,  426. 

SadduceeB,  origin  of,  288. 

Samnel,  services  to  Israel,  227. 

Sanday,  Professor,  external  evidence 
aa  to  authorship  of  John's  Gospel, 
470 ;  on  indirect  Johannine  author- 
•hip,  471  ;  on  free  reporting  of 
Christ's  words  in  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
475,  476,  479. 

Sayce,  Professor,  <«  antiqnity  of 
writing,  216. 

Schelling,  relation  of  hia  philosophy 
to  Spinoza,  79. 

Schleiermacher,  on  sin  and  physical 
evil,  68  ;  matter  eternal,  66  ;  view 
of  resurrection  of  Jesus,  386 ;  on 
virgin  birth,  409  ;  on  the  wnop- 
tical  Christ  compared  with  that  of 
Fourth  Gospel,  489. 

Sohneckenburger,  ACU  of  Apo8tle» 
•n  apologetic  writing,  446. 

Schopenhauer,  hia  pessimism,  127. 

Schnltz,  on  Decalogue,  216 ;  antiqoity 
of  ritual,  220  ;  on  books  of  Chron- 
icles, 832 ;  on  Jonah  and  Ruth, 
883 ;  defects  of  Old  Testament,  834, 
386. 

Schiirer,  Messianic  hope  in  period  of 
the  Scribes,  292. 

Soribism,  began  with  Ezra,  263 ; 
functions  of,  281 ;  resolts,  288 ; 
interpretation  of  the  law,  296 ; 
Farrar  on,  296. 

Scriptores,  Hebrew  effect  of  criticism 
on,  806  ;  inspiration  how  affected 
by  criticism,  309 ;  traces  of  religioua 
defects  in,  826  ;  Christian  view  of 
these,  836 ;  Christ's  estimate  of, 
607  ;  high  yet  discriminating,  608. 

Scriptures,  New  Testament,  their 
value,  611  ;  canon  of,  618. 

Septuagint,  story  of,  298 ;  trsoea  of 
Greek  influence  in,  294. 

Sin,  in  Christian  theory  of  the  nni- 
verse,  60-62  ;  relation  of  moral  to 
physical  evU,  68  ;  in  Judaism,  268. 

Sinlessness  of  Jesna,  concurrent  cause 
of  worship  of  Him  aa  IxHd,  400. 

Smith,  Professor  O.  A.,  on  Isa. 
zxziL  8,  858 ;  Iiuah  in  Gospela, 
868. 

Smith,  Profeaaor  W.  B.,  on  laaiah'a 
miniatnr,  186 1  on  Isa.  iz.  6, 
859;  Levitical  ritual  not  God's 
word  by  Motes,  268 ;  on  Old  Teat»- 
ment  canon,  810. 


Socialism,  tendency  of,  in  morala,  Bai 
on,  113,  114. 

Song  of  Solomon,  canonioit^  of,  821. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  agnostioiBm  de- 
fined, 147. 

Spinoza,  Traetatus  TlteoL-Politietis, 
81  ;  Ethica,  72  ;  theory  of  universe, 
72  ff. ;  relation  to  Hegel's,  78  ; 
denied  moral  distinctions,  88. 

Steams,  argument  from  ChriatiaQ 
experience,  864. 

Steck,  theory  as  to  Paul's  leading 
Epistles,  437. 

Strauss,  on  Reimarus,  23 ;  denies  per- 
sonality of  God,  81 ;  on  Hegel- 
ianism,  86;  on  future  life,  89; 
thought  a  mode  of  motion,  97  ; 
religious  views,  104,  114  ;  on 
Schopenhauer,  127 ;  on  resorree- 
tion  of  Jesus,  884  £L 

TssTAMKirr,    New,    apdogetie    el»- 

meuts  in,  1. 
Theistie  arguments  stated,  149  fll 
Thoma,  the  Fourth  Gospel  a  life  of 

Jesus  after  the  type  of  Philo's  Vita 

Moain,  491. 
Thomaon,  D'Arcy,  Sala  Attid,  245. 
Thomson,  J.  E.  H.,  on  apocalyptio 

literature,  292. 
Transcendence,  vide  Immanenet. 
Tiibingen  school,  vide  Baur. 

ULUfANK,  the  dnlessneas  of  Jesos, 
412. 

Ulrici,  brain  necessary  to  eonsdoiiB- 
ness,  109 ;  on  theory  that  crime 
arises  from  diseased  brain,  IIL 

Vatkb,  variation  in  his  critical  views, 
171 ;  dialectic  of  history,  201 ;  on 
Decalogue,  216  ;  ritual  non-Mosaic, 
222;  ideality  of  God  Mosaic, 
281. 

Yemes,  Maurice,  views  on  Old  Testa- 
ment criticism,  172. 

WArriNo  on  God  in  prophets  and 
Psalms,  240. 

Watkins,  Archdeacon,  external  evi- 
dence as  to  authorship  of  John's 
Gospel,  470 ;  translation  the  key 
to  reports  of  Ohrist's  tA»r>bfng  in, 
476. 

Weiss,  Dr.  Bemhard,  view  of  primi- 
tive Christianity,  482 ;  Panl^  oon« 
Tsnion,  489;  on  lint  mission  to 


52S 


GENERAL   IKDEX. 


OmtflM,  440;  «  Matthew't  book 
of  Logia,  449 ;  on  the  great  eom- 
inisidoB,  464. 

Wdisicker,  rivw  of  primitire  Chru* 
tUnitj,  433  ;  secondair  Job&nnine 
anthorship  of  Foarth  Gospel,  471 ; 
its  narratiy«a  ideal,  478  ;  its  great 
Talne,  490 ;  cannot  be  from  John, 
492. 

WeUhansen,  late  origin  of  Decalogue, 
171,  214,  216  ;  disputed  texts  in 
Amos,  179  ;  on  Jewish  cultus, 
268 ;  prominence  of  sin  in  Judaism, 
268 ;  origin  of  Pharisees  and  Sad- 
dncees,  289. 

iTtndt,  on  Logos  doctrine  in  Fourth 
Gospel,  478  ;  partition  theory, 
4Mt   *Mohiii«  of  roorth  Gospel 


sabstanttall  J  same  ss  Id  STSOBlha 

487  ;  treatment  of  the  Fatherhood 
of  God  unsatisfaotory,  488  ;  Jeam 
the  supreme  religions  anthoritj, 
610. 

Westcott,  Bishop,  on  free  report  of 
Christ's  teaching  in  the  Fonrth 
Gospel,  475;  on  the  New  Testfto 
ment  canon,  613. 

Wisdom  of  Siracb,  on  Greek  transla- 
tions of  Hebrew  books,  294 ;  oa 
Hebrew  books,  317. 

Wisdom  of  Solomon,  influence  of 
Greek  philosophy  traceable  Ib, 
294  ;  supposed  source  of  tin 
gracious  inritation,  468. 

ZsLLxm  on  tlM  AnftUnn^  111 


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[Now  Ready. 

APOLOGETICS.  By  A.  B.  Bruce,  D.D. ,  sometime  Professor  of  New  Testa- 
ment Exegesis,  Free  Church  College,  Glasgow.  [Revised  and  Enlarged  Edition, 


The   International  Theological  Library 

THE  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD.  By  WiLLiAM  N.  Clarke,  D.D., 
sometime  Professor  ©f  Systematic  Theology,  Hamilton  Theological  Semi- 
nary. [Now  Ready. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MAN.  By  WiLLiAM  P.  Paterson,  D.D.,  Professor 
of  Divinity,  University  of  Edinburgh. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  PERSON   OF  JESUS  CHRIST.      By    H.    R. 

Macktntosh,  Ph.D.,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Theology,  New  College,  Edinburgh. 

[New  Ready. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  SALVATION.  By  George  B.  STE- 
VENS, D.D.,  sometime  Professor  of  Systematic  Theology,  Yale  University. 

[New  Ready. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  LIFE.  By  Wtlliam  Adams 
Brown,    D.D.,    Professor    of    Systematic    Theology,    Union    Theological 

Seminary,  New  York. 

CHRISTIAN  ETHICS.  By  Newman  Smyth,  D.D.,  Pastor  of  Congr^a- 
tional  Church,  New  Maven.  [Revised  and  Enlarged  BaiHoM. 

THE     CHRISTIAN     PASTOR    AND    THE    WORKING     CHURCH.      By 

Washinhto-n  Gl.addbn,  D.D..  <^o-mct:ime  Pastor  of  Congregational  Churck, 
Columbus,  Qiik).  [Now  Ready. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  PREACHER.     By  A.  E.  G«y*\iE,  D.D.,   Principal  of 

New  College,  London,  England.  [Now  Ready. 

HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS.  By  Cbam^s  Hknry  Robin- 
SON,  D.D.,  Hon.  Canon  of  Ripon  Cathedral  and  Editorial  Secretary  of  the 
Society  for  the  Propagation  ol  tke  Gospel  in  Foreiga  Parts. 

[N0W  Reidy, 


The 
International  Critical  Commentary 


ARRANGEMENT  OF  VOLUMES  AND  AUTHORS 
THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

GENESIS.  The  Rev.  John  Skinner,  D.D.,  Principal  and  Professor  of 
Old  Testament  Language  and  Literature,  College  of  Presbyterian  Church 
of  England,  Cambridge,  England.  [Now  Ready. 

EXODUS.  The  Rev.  A.  R.  S.  Kenn^ujy,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Hebrew, 
University  of  Edinburgh. 

LEVITICUS.     J.  F.  Stenning,  M.A.,  Fellow  of  Wadham  College,  Oxford. 

NUMBERS.  The  Rev.  G.  Buchanan  Gray,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Hebrew, 
ALansfield  College,  Oxford.  [Now  Ready. 

DEUTERONOMY.  The  Rev.  S.  R.  Dri\^r,  D.D.,  D.Litt.,  sometime 
Regius  Professor  of  Hebrew,  Oxford.  [Now  Ready. 

JOSHUA.  The  Rev.  George  Adam  Ss«th,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Principal  of  the 
University  of  Aberdeen. 

JUDGES.  The  Rev.  George  F.  Moore,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  The- 
ology, Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  [Now  Ready. 

SAMUEL.  The  Rev.  H.  P.  Sj«th,  D.D.,  Librarian,  Union  Theological 
Seminary,  New  York.  [Now  Ready. 

KINGS.     [Atdhor  to  be  announced.] 

CHRONICLES.  The  Rev.  Edward  L.  Curtis,  D.D.,  Professor  of 
Hebrew,  Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn.  [Now  Ready. 

EZRA  AND  N  EH  EM  I  AH.  The  Rev.  L.  W.  Batten,  Ph.D.,  D.D.,  Pro- 
fessor of  Old  Testament  Literature,  General  Theological  Seminary,  New 
York.  City.  [Now  Ready. 

PSALMS.  The  Rev.  Chas.  A.  Briggs,  D.D.,  D.Litt.,  sometime  Graduate 
Professor  of  Theological  Encyclopaedia  and  Symbolics,  Union  Theological 
Sejuinary,  New  York.  [2  vols.     Now  Ready. 

^WOVERBS.  The  Rev.  C.  H.  Toy,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Hebrew, 
Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass.  [N«w  Ready. 

JOB.  The  Rev.  G.  Buchanan  Grat,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Hebrew,  Mans- 
fidd  College,  Oxford,  and  the  Rev.  S.  R.  Dsivi«,  D.D.,  D.Litt.,  sometime 
R«gius  Pr»f«ssc«:  of  Hebrew,  Oxiowi.  [In  Press. 


The   International   Critical   Commentary 


ISAIAH.  Chaps.  I-XXVII.  The  Rev.  G.  Buchakan  Gray,  D.D.,  Pro- 
fessor of  Hebrew,  Mansfield  College,  Oxford.  [Now  Ready. 

ISAIAH.  Chaps.  XXVIII-XXXTX.  The  Rev.  G.  Buchanan  Gray,  D.D. 
Chaps.  LX-LXVl.  The  Rev.  A.  S.  Peakk,  M.A.,  D.D.,  Dean  of  the  Th»o- 
logical  Faculty  of  the  Victoria  University  and  Professor  of  Biblical  Exegesis 
in  the  Unirsrsity  of  Manchester,  England. 

JEREMIAH.  The  Rev.  A.  F.  Kirkpatrick,  D.D.,  Dean  of  Ely,  sometime 
Regius  Professor  of  Hebrew,  Cambridge,  England. 

EZEKIEL.  The  Rev.  G.  A.  Cooke,  M.A.,  Oriel  Professor  of  the  Interpre- 
tation of  Holy  Scripture,  University  of  Oxford,  and  the  Rev.  Charles  F. 
BuRNEY,  D.Litt.,  Fellow  and  Lecturer  in  Hebrew,  St.  John's  College, 
Oxford. 

DANIEL.  The  Rev.  John  P.  Peters,  Ph.D.,  D.D.,  sometime  Professor 
of  Hebrew,  P.  E.  Divinity  School,  Philadelphia,  now  Rector  of  St.  Michael's 
Church,  New  York  City. 

AMOS  AND  HOSEA.  W.  R.  Harpbr,  Ph.D.,  LL.D.,  sometime  Presideat 
of  the  University  of  Chicago,  lUirwis.  [Now  Remdy. 

MICAH,    ZEPHANIAH,    NAHUM,    HABAKKUK,   OBADIAH   AND  JOEL. 

Prof.  John  M.  P.  Smith,  University  of  Chicago;  W.  Hayes  Ward,  D.D., 
LL.D.,  Editor  of  The  Independent,  New  York;  Prof.  Julius  A.  Bewer, 
Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York.  [Now  Ready. 

HAGGAI.  ZECHARIAH.  MALACHI  AND  JONAH.  Prof.  H.  G.  MlTCHXLL, 
D.D.;  Prof.  John  M.  P.  Smith,  Ph.D.,  and  Prof.  J.  A.  Bewer,  Ph.D. 

[Now  Rtady. 

ESTHER.  The  Rev.  L.  B.  Paton,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Hebrew,  Hart- 
ford Theological  Seminary.  [Now  Ready. 

ECCLESIASTES.  Prof.  George  A.  Barton,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Bibli- 
cal Literature,  Bryn  Mawr  College,  Pa.  [Now  Ready. 

RUTH,  SONG  OF  SONGS  AND  LAMENTATIONS.  Rev.  Charles  A. 
Briggs,  D.D.,  D.Litt.,  sometime  Graduate  Professor  of  Theological  Ency- 
clopiedia  and  Symbolics,  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

ST.  MATTHEW.     The  Rev.  Willoughby  C.  Allen,  M.A.,  Fellow  xa4 
Lecturer  in  Theology  and  Hebrew,  Exeter  College,  Oxford.        [Now  Ready. 

ST.  MARK.     Rev.  E.  P.  Gould,  D.D.,  sometime  Professor  of  New  Testa- 
ment Literature,  P.  E.  Divinity  School,  Philadelphia.  [Now  Reedy. 

ST.  LUKE.    The  Rev.  Alfred  Plummer,  D.D.,  late  Master  of  University 
College,  Durham.  [Now  Rtady. 


The   International   Critical   Commentary 


ST.  JOHN.  The  Right  Rev.  JOffiM  Henry  Bernard,  D.D.,  Bishop  of 
Ossory,  Ireland. 

HARMONY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  The  Rev.  WiLLiAM  Sanday,  D.D., 
LL.D.,  Lady  Margaret  Professor  of  Divinity,  Oxford,  and  the  Rev.  Wil- 
LOUGBBY  C.  Allen,  M.A.,  Fellow  and  Lecturer  in  Divinity  and  Hebrew, 
Exeter  College,  Oxford. 

ACTS.  The  Rev.  C.  H.  Turner,  D.D.,  Fdlow  of  Magdalen  College, 
Oxford,  and  the  Rev.  H.  N.  Bate,  M.A.,  Examining  Chaplain  to  the 
Bishop  of  London. 

ROMANS.  The  Rev.  William  Sanday,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Lady  Margaret 
Professor  of  Divinity  and  Canon  of  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  and  the  Rev. 
A.  C.  Headlam,  M.A.,  D.D.,  Principal  of  King's  College,  London. 

[Now  Ready. 

I.  CORINTHIANS.  The  Right  Rev.  Arch  Robertson,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
Lord  Bishop  of  Exeter,  and  Rev.  Alfred  Plummer,  D.D.,  late  Master  of 
University  College,  Durham.  [Now  Ready. 

II.  CORINTHIANS.  The  Rev.  Alfred  Plummer,  M.A.,  D.D.,  late 
Master  of  University  College,  Durham.  [Now  Ready. 

GALATIANS.  The  Rev.  Ernest  D.  Burton,  D.D.,  Professor  of  New 
Testament  Literature,  University  of  Chicago.  [Now  Ready. 

EPHESIANS  AND  COLOSSIANS.  The  Rev.  T.  K.  Abbott,  B.D., 
D.Litt.,  sometime  Professor  of  Biblical  Greek,  Trinity  College,  Dublin, 
now  Librarian  of  the  same.  [Now  Ready. 

PHILIPPIANS  AND  PHILEMON.  The  Rev.  Marvin  R.  Vincent, 
D.D.,  Professor  of  Biblical  Literature,  Union  Theological  Seraiiaary,  New 
York  City.  [Now  Ready. 

THESSALONIANS.  The  Rev.  James  E.  Frame,  M.A.,  Professor  of 
Bibhcal  Theology,  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York  City. 

[Now  Ready. 
THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES.  The  Rev.  Walter  Lock,  D.D.,  Warden 
of  Keble  College  and  Professor  of  Exegesis,  Oxford. 

HEBREWS.  The  Rev.  James  IMoffatt,  D.D.,  Minister  United  Free 
Church,  Broughty  Ferry,  Scotland. 

ST.  JAMES.  The  Rev.  James  H.  Ropes,  D.D.,  Bussey  Professor  of  New 
Testament  Criticism  in  Harvard  University.  [Now  Ready. 

PETER  AND  JUDE.  The  Rev.  Charles  Bigg,  D.D.,  sometime  Regius 
Professor  of  Ecclesiastical  History  and  Canon  of  Christ  Church,  Oxford. 

[Now  Ready. 

THE  JOHANNINE  EPISTLES.     TTie  Rev.  E.  A.  Brooke,  B.D.,   Fellow 

and  Divinity  Lecturer  in  King's  College,  Cambridge.  [Now  Ready. 

REVELATION.  The  Rev.  Robert  H.  Charles,  M.A.,  D.D.,  sometime 
Professorof  Biblical  Greek  in  the  University  of  Dublin.     [2V0ls.  Now  Ready. 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


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